"‘No Jobs in China’ Chinese Students Going Abroad for Studies"

Recently, with the youth unemployment rate soaring in China, the number of local students attempting to study abroad has surged.

Young people are browsing a job fair held in Beijing, the capital of China. This is not directly related to the article. [Image source=Yonhap News]

According to the Chinese Ministry of Education on the 21st, the number of applicants for studying abroad within China last year increased sharply by 23.4% compared to the previous year. Most of them (81.2%) are university graduates aiming to obtain a master's degree.

The Hong Kong South China Morning Post (SCMP) mentioned this and reported the situation of 22-year-old graduate Jenny Zan, who majored in biology at a university in Fujian Province. SCMP explained, "Zan spent more than 10,000 yuan (about 1.83 million KRW) taking the international English proficiency test six times in one year and achieved the desired score in February," adding, "In May, she received an offer to study bioinformatics at Georgetown University in Washington."

SCMP stated, "Zan dislikes the mandatory ideological and political education classes and meetings at Chinese universities," and diagnosed, "Chinese university students continue to flock overseas due to dissatisfaction with the education system and to enhance their personal competitiveness."

The number of applicants for graduate school entrance exams in China has been increasing every year, but the growth rate sharply slowed from 21% in 2022 to 3.7% this year. SCMP cited reasons such as resistance to exams, flaws in the domestic education system, and the decreasing advantage of Chinese master's degrees for future employment.

Professor Li Jun of the Mathematical Sciences Center at Fudan University explained, "The most important thing for talent cultivation is to attract excellent students to domestic graduate schools." However, SCMP pointed out that Chinese graduate schools allow applicants to apply to only one program at one graduate school, and the risk of failure is higher compared to the chances of success at overseas universities.

The lack of jobs for university and graduate school graduates in China is also cited as a reason for the surge in studying abroad. In June, China's youth unemployment rate (ages 16-24) reached a record high of 21.3%, and since last month, the government announced it would stop releasing related figures. This year, the number of university graduates in China is expected to reach 11.58 million, the highest ever.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.