Li Peixia, Wang Yuanyuan

    cheekywang@hotmail.com

    Nearly every university in the country has increased the enrollment of postgraduate students in recent years and at some universities they even exceed the number of undergraduate students.

    “I worked very hard to get into postgraduate school, but I found there are more postgraduates than undergraduates here. In the future, people with postgraduate degrees will find it even harder to get jobs than those who just have undergraduate degrees,” said Zhang Yanxin, a postgraduate student from Qinghua University in Beijing.

    According to the universities’ figures, the number of postgraduate students at Qinghua University and Beijing University, the country’s top two universities, is nearly the same, and the number of postgraduates exceeds the number of undergraduates if doctoral students are included.

    Also, 3,283 undergraduate students and 2,726 postgraduate students graduated from Nanjing University in Jiangsu Province this summer, while the number of postgraduate students who graduated from Northeastern University in Liaoning Province was 308 more than the number of undergraduate students.

    According to the figures given by the Ministry of Education, 54,838 postgraduate students graduated in 2000 and the number reached 538,177 in 2010, increasing by about 1,000 percent in 10 years.

    The sharp increase is mainly due to the increasing number of master’s courses offered by universities, said a professor at Shenzhen University, who only identified himself as Liu.

    “Increasing the number of master’s courses brings lots of benefits to a university. The university will have more funds for scientific research and there will be more revenue from tuition fees. Lecturers who teach postgraduate classes will have higher salaries and receive higher commissions when giving lectures or training to companies,” said Liu.

    At present, there are 108 public universities under the direct administration of the Central Government and 633 public comprehensive universities under the administration of provincial governments in 2012. However, 797 organizations enrol postgraduate students across the country, 56 more than the those enrolling undergraduate students. Among the 797 organizations, 481 are regular public universities and 316 are science research institutes. “In the United States, no more than 25 percent of universities can enroll doctoral students, but in China, more than 40 percent of universities and colleges can enroll doctoral students,” said Liu.

    Many students also complained about the decreasing quality of postgraduate education. “My cousin graduated from postgraduate school 10 years ago. He told me there were only about 20 classmates on his course and professors could spend a lot of time with them. But now, I have nearly 50 classmates, as many as the number of my undergraduate program, and I have hardly seen my tutor because he was too busy giving lectures or attending academic events around the world,” said Zhang.

    Employers have also said that there was little difference between taking on a postgraduate student and an undergraduate student. “I don’t think that today’s postgraduate students are more qualified or more skillful than undergraduate students. In fact, I’d rather hire an undergraduate student because they make lower salary demands and are more teachable,” said Wu Yan, a human resources manager at a Shenzhen company.