Recent years have seen a rising trend among Chinese undergraduate students opting to pursue further education. The latest statistics show that at least 11 universities in China have a postgraduate enrollment rate of 70% or higher among their fresh graduates, with prestigious institutions like Peking University and Tsinghua University approaching an enrollment rate of nearly 80%. Some scholars attribute this trend to the economic downturn in China and the issue of youth unemployment.
On June 25th, a report by “The First Financial” revealed that data from the “Academic Year 2022 to 2023 Undergraduate Teaching Quality Reports” released by various universities in China, along with relevant graduate data, indicated that the postgraduate enrollment rate of 2023 fresh undergraduates at several universities had reached above 70%.
Over the past six years, the number of postgraduate students has increased by over 60%, with enrollment sizes continuing to grow.
The 11 universities with high postgraduate enrollment rates include Tsinghua University, Peking University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Science and Technology of China, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Beihang University, ShanghaiTech University, Southern University of Science and Technology, and University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. Some top universities were not included in the statistics due to the lack of updated enrollment data.
Among these universities, Tsinghua University had a postgraduate enrollment rate of 80.8% for the 2023 undergraduate cohort, while Peking University’s rate was 78.07%. This means that approximately 8 out of 10 undergraduates from Tsinghua and Peking University choose to continue their studies. The university with the highest postgraduate enrollment rate for fresh graduates was the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences at 90.1%.
Professor Zheng Zhengbing from Yunlin University of Science and Technology in Taiwan stated on June 27th that this trend indicates the failure of the Chinese Communist Party’s education policy, disrupting the traditional pathway of social mobility through studying, exams, and degrees. It also reflects the challenges faced by China in economic and industrial development, with an alarmingly high unemployment rate that the mainland’s economy and market cannot support students entering the workforce, leading many graduates to pursue further education instead.
Zheng further noted that in the first half of 2023, the official youth unemployment rate announced by the CCP was 21%, but Chinese scholars estimated the actual unemployment rate to be near 50%, exceeding 45%. He emphasized that the current unemployment situation is even more dire, with an increasing number of high-education-degree holders facing limited job prospects, posing a significant challenge for China.
Video blogger and popular Weibo user “Shanzha Buzha M” once remarked, “If you can’t find a job, you can only continue your studies.” A Beijing netizen named “Wuchanghe” also expressed concerns, stating, “The terrifying part is that after graduation, the expansion of undergraduate admissions has made companies in the job market more selective. If you are not from a top-tier university, it’s hard to find a suitable job because companies do not need so many people. This scenario is likely to repeat itself in the postgraduate level soon.”
According to previous reports by mainland media, the undergraduate further education rates at ShanghaiTech University and Southern University of Science and Technology are as high as 81.70% and 79.46% respectively; Shanghai Jiao Tong University and University of Electronic Science and Technology of China have undergraduate further education rates of 72.61% and 72.06% respectively; Beihang University and Fudan University have undergraduate further education rates of 71.78% and 70.61% respectively.
In addition to these 11 universities, out of the 30 “985 Project Universities”, 25 have postgraduate enrollment rates exceeding 50%, with 15 of them surpassing 60%.