The recession is hitting students who have lost their fathers and rely on donations to go to high school or university.
Rie Sakai, a 20-year-old science and engineering sophomore at Nihon University in Tokyo, took part in a fundraising drive in October in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, and found a decline in the number of passersby responding to calls for donations.
The drive held in Tokyo and three other prefectures raised about ¥62 million, down about ¥10 million from a similar campaign in April.