From the heart of Beijing to the edges of the global stage, you're at Roundtable.
I'm Niu Henglin.
Once upon a time, the postgraduate exam was the academic equivalent of.
Just in case the job market was bad, just in case everyone else was doing it, just in case you didn't know what you wanted yet.
Nowadays, more and more students are doing another kind of math, comparing another three years of study with three years of work experience, income and skill accumulation.
When returns look uncertain, young people, often accused of being impulsive, are behaving with surprising caution.
Let's get into the story and find out how they are rethinking their future.
For today's show, I'm joined by Yushun and Steve Hatherly.
Now pull up a chair and join the conversation.
Remember when everyone and their cousin was a master's candidate?
Now the trend is work first, find out your passion, and maybe study later.
Students are deciding that maybe, just maybe, three more years of cafeteria food isn't the vibe anymore.
Let's talk about why the library is now a little bit more empty and the job fairs are packed.
So let's start with the examination for postgraduate study here, because here in China the system is a little bit different.
Yeah.
In many countries you apply to graduate school with your undergraduate grades personal statement, maybe recommendation letters and maybe a standardized test like the GRE or ALTS.
You apply for it.
Yes.
And in China, for most master's programs, you score on a nationwide standardized exam.
And that the score of this exam is the most important factor.
So it mainly has two main components.
One is the initial exam.
It's basically the written tests.
Every single candidate in the country sits for these exams at the same time.
Three to four subjects like politics, foreign language that's kind of the mandatory subject that you need to take and also maths for some of the majors if you're in the engineering, something like that.
Sorry to interrupt, but just so I'm clear.
So some of the subjects all the students have to take, and then it becomes specialized or diversified, depending on what it is you're studying.
Yes, and it makes quite a lot of sense.
I mean, there are definitely upsides and downsides for each system, for every system for sure.
And here, if we look at this system, the upside is that it's definitely fair because you take the same kind of examination, you pass a certain kind of benchmark, and then you go to the interview with the people who might be your mentor, your major teacher in the future.
That's the second part.
Yes, that's what Yushun is about to explain a bit later as well.
But the thing that people also argue a little bit would be that as a standardized examination, definitely some people might be really good for this major, but they lack the opportunity to show it because they're bad at taking paper tests.
It's also possible.
Yeah.
And then because you have to first of all meet that certain criteria score requirements of the school.
If you pass that national cutoff and the specific score requirements of your chosen university, you're invited to that second stage run by the university itself.
Mostly just a professional interview, often with a panel of professors of this school, and then specialized to written or lab test or sometimes an English oral test.
That's basically to prove that the second round of the enrollment.
And the reason we're explaining the examination is that if you are in a kind of system that requires you to apply for your postgraduate degree, the cost of applying would be the amount of time you spend on preparing for the introduction, on preparing for your past experiences.
And you can apply for different universities and different schools if you have the money to the application fee.
Is it expensive to apply?
That's the thing what i'm talking about.
It's not the kind of system here in the chinese mainland, it's in other societies.
So if it's in other societies you can apply for multiple schools, but here in china you take the standardized one exam for the postgraduate study, meaning that if you sign up for the study, you definitely have a willingness to be a postgraduate student in the future.
And second is that you can't really apply for or sign up for as many schools as you want, which means the number of people signing for the postgraduate exam makes a little bit sense in the sense that you we can analyze that number and that number would show how much of a willingness the society or the students you have to apply for a postgraduate study.
And We're explaining this because now we see a different trend in the number here.
Yeah, what we can see is that the stats is changing.
National Business Daily's data is showing that in 2024, about 438 million people signed up for China's national master's degree entrance exam, down 360000 from 474 million in 2023.
It marked the first decline after eight straight years of growth.
Yeah, that was 2024.
And then in 2025, the drop continued.
Registrations fell to 3.88 million.
And then by 2026, which is where we are now, of course, that number slid further to 3.43 million.
That's 450000 fewer now than the year prior and a total decrease of over 13 million compared with 2023.
So if we put all of that together, it marks the third year in a row that postgraduate exam applications have gone down.
Yet we do also have uh, historical data showed that postgraduate enrollment growth had already slowed before declining, and also for this year, because we're still looking at how many people would be enrolled in postgraduate studies.
So we don't have that figure just yet, but Definitely Roundtable is looking at that.
But well, if we look at the number of how many students have signed up for the examination, we can easily draw a conclusion that, at least for the past three years, we are seeing a declining willingness.
So why aren't people as enthusiastic as those who are a little bit older than them and decided that maybe postgraduate is not the way they want to go?
The mindset change is one of the reasons that has been heatedly discussed online.
The blindly following the trend mindset is kind of gone.
Just in case.
Many students just signed up not because they had their clear career goals, but because everyone around them was doing it.
Their friends or classmates or even family expectations created this kind of peer pressure for them.
So for some of these students, it was a way to avoid feeling left behind in this kind of competitive job market, or even just this society, or simply the default path when future plans felt uncertain, especially during the pandemic pandemic.
Yeah, and i'd say you, you could um, you could argue that that's a western culture thing, for students too.
If you're not sure what you want to do with yourself when you're finished your undergraduate degree, if you're not sure which um, which work or which career you want to pursue, then simply falling back.
Falling back might be the wrong choice of words, but maybe going to graduate school as a plan A-1, if you will, as opposed to plan A Not a lesser choice, but yet just a choice so that you could spend a little bit more time in your studies to figure things out.
Yeah, and I don't think it is a, like, wrong plan or something.
It's just.
It is a good way for you to, if you haven't figured out what kind of direction they are going to whether it's your further study or just going to drop market And then, when it is the stage that you are kind of hesitating, going to that exam and maybe getting enrolled into a postgraduate is a good choice.
Yeah well, that's what the theory was before.
Is that it wasn't a bad plan at all, because at least you were securing your future.
And I think again, you can argue that that's a kind of a Western way of thinking as well, or at least it used to be that if you did go to pursue your master's degree, that it was something that was going to guarantee success, at least to a certain degree, pun intended, I suppose, a certain amount of security in the future.
And another reason or another mindset change here is that now I think we've talked about this on Roundtable as well that is for a lot of employers.
They would take a look at your past studying experience, education experience and take into consideration the undergraduate background.
And previously for some people, for some students, the reason was that during their high school years they felt like ah, studying was not my major thing, too busy enjoying my school life and didn't study hard enough.
But in undergraduate their mindset changed and they wanted to go for postgraduate study to kind of offset a relatively weak undergraduate background.
But with more and more employer also putting a lot of weight on the undergraduate degree, that move seems a little less useful or effective.
Well, the market got a little bit flooded, if it's a fair thing to say, because over the past decades China has dramatically expanded its postgraduate education.
For example, in 2024 alone, the country enrolled about 14 million new master's students and the total number of graduating master's students reached over 11 million.
Now compare that to 1998, when all undergraduates and postgraduates combined numbered just 11 million.
So what that means is it's a lot more common. to find a master's degree today.
Yes.
Or someone with one.
Definitely.
And in 2023, we're looking at Shanghai, which is a very developed city here in China.
In 2023, graduate employment rate was about 40, meaning that even after postgraduate study, it's still definitely not a guarantee for a position in the job market.
So no, it's not a smooth sailing just because you have a master's degree.
Yeah and uh.
There's another exam that we kind of also need to mention.
That is the civil service exam.
It actually also there is another trend about this exam it attracted about 37 million qualified applicants in 2025, which is also uh, hitting a new record high.
This message delivering that more young people appearing to be drawn to the clearer structure and stability that these civil service positions can offer, which means that they're just, you know, they're drawn to these like clear path of their career.
Which is exactly what they were doing before, or at least what they thought they were doing before, by pursuing another master's or a different type of master's.
Here we're trying to analyze what they're thinking and figuring out what they favor over the kind of.
What are the choices that they favor over other choices?
But to be honest, if we think like 10 years ago, when we were standing in the crossroads of future, what were we thinking?
Do we really have enough information to decide the future of our lives?
Is it really that clear?
I don't think so.
I think the reason part of the reason that these kind of civil servants position that are quite attractive or seems to be attractive, is that we don't really know about the other part of the world.
We don't really know what other positions in a specific company, what does that entail?
And we do know that a position in a local government office would mean that I would definitely need to study a lot and learn about what to do.
But I will have the ability to learn and maybe that is relatively more stable.
Yeah, you're talking about certainty versus uncertainty.
Yes.
And if you think about it, high school students don't have any certainty about their future. undergraduate students don't necessarily have any certainty about their future depending perhaps on the program that they're studying so when you if you're considering doing a master's degree it's certainty you hope for at least a little certainty you've spent the last seven years of your education going back to high school and your undergraduate degree without any certainty at all.
So this is just something that young people are looking for now.
And the numbers through a survey confirmed that.
So they asked, you know, what are you looking for when you're pursuing a master's degree?
This is from a 2024 employment research paper or research survey, excuse me done by a consulting firm here in China.
And here are the answers employment, or employability, and support in a long-term career and development.
48 said they pursue a master's degree for better job prospects and 45 said it's necessary for their professional growth.
So you can see the mindset there.
Almost half said it's necessary for me to be successful in my career, even though I don't necessarily know what that career is going to be.
And 48% believed that it was a better opportunity to get a job, more security.
And another interesting result from a survey showed that over half of the Chinese university students plan to pursue graduate study and their anxiety levels are noticeably higher than those who do not.
Because these people might not have a clear path about their life just yet.
They might have, we don't know.
But definitely they care a bit more than those who decided that well, I can have a job because I'm sure, or let me risk it.
So it has something to do with psychology, collective psychology as well.
Yeah, that actually leads to another mindset that people are having or the changed value that they are having.
Many younger students don't like worship that credentials.
Some prefer lower stress, jobs or just more balanced lifestyle rather than chasing high paying positions or higher degrees.
And the decision not to take the exam may reflect a more diversified or even personal approach to their life and career.
Or you could just simply consider using the time You would spend preparing for the exams and then maybe the time mostly three years here in China pursuing a master's degree, to accumulate work experience.
You can just think about it and which outcome do you actually want more.
This is happening in the United States as well.
This is from the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
I'll read to you what they said.
The number of students enrolling in graduate school is steadily declining, according to a recent report.
This is from 2024, by the way, by the Council of Graduate Schools.
Although grad school enrollment increased by 6 between 2010 and 2020, progress that remained unhindered by the pandemic.
It began falling in 2022.
And it dropped by a total of 4.7% between the fall season of school, 2021 and fall of 2022.
And during that period, part-time enrollment fell by almost 7, full-time enrollment fell by almost 4.
And the statistics go on, but they tell the same story.
So I found that to be rather intriguing, because if we can draw a line between the pandemic and and then going to graduate school for young American students or the choice to pursue a postgraduate degree,
You know, we know that coming out of the pandemic, people started to question their work.
I like hybrid work.
I like the opportunity to maybe work fewer hours in the office.
Maybe students too started to question Do I actually need to go to graduate school or do I not?
And there's another factor that is the return on investment.
Which is why they started to ask that question.
Yes.
And these data are also from the United States, which we know that they have a relatively higher cost when it comes to education.
And around 40 percent of U.S. master's degree yield negative financial returns.
And fields with constantly high returns include computer science engineering, mathematics and nursing.
These are the kind of profession that requires really high level of professional knowledge and skills.
And fields like MBA programs arts, humanities and philosophy show high probability of negative ROI.
And overall, 60% of master's degrees show positive ROI and 40% do not.
And I think it is definitely a major factor for students to choose to choose postgraduate study or not.
But it also has something to do with why you go to postgraduate study the very first place because, even though I don't think it's the major ratio or the major percentage, but still there are students who go into postgraduate study because they genuinely love the major and they wanted to do academic work, academic study, they want to be some kind of scientist in the future, they want to push the edge of human knowledge of this specific academic area just a little bit with their lifetime.
It is also there.
So, besides asking or analyzing what students are thinking, another very important part of the puzzle would be what are the curriculum designers are thinking?
What are they giving to the?
What are, what are the curriculum for these postgraduate studies, for these different majors?
I was just going to add a point that – because it just popped into my head
Do you remember when we were talking on Roundtable a few months ago about – was it engineering programs and how they were being – Integrated with companies?
Yes.
Yes.
Case studies.
Yes.
Problem solving.
Right.
So you had actual companies from the real world working together to design programs university programs – that would be real life learning experience for the students.
Yes.
So that it could prepare them to go out and work into the world.
Maybe doesn't matter if we're talking about China or America or wherever.
If we're seeing lower enrollment numbers for graduate programs, maybe that could be part of the problem, because you'd have to assume that not every program would have that same benefit for the student.
I think policymakers are trying to fix that problem or to provide more choices.
That is, they offer the kind of postgraduate study that are more closely linked with academic research and study, and also the kind of postgraduate programs that are more linked with real life problem solving and real life career.
Professional master's degree, that's what you're referring to, I think.
So there is also another shift in scale in the past five years.
Professional master's students are expected to make up about two thirds of total master's enrollment, alongside a significant expansion of professional doctor programs.
And basically in China.
There are two types of master's degree.
Academic degree a master's focuses on theoretical research and prepares students for mostly PhD studies, while professional master's emphasizes practical skills and training for specific careers.
So I think what you mentioned integrating the real scene, cases study and practical skills practicing that is, I think, mostly for these professional master's degree students and they can have real hands-on experience activities when they're pursuing these master's degree.
And people are choosing these different areas.
Well, like we mentioned earlier, there are students who are quite clear about what they want.
And for them, it's quite easy.
The things or the information are there and you can just choose accordingly.
But for those students who are not that 100 percent sure just yet, they have to look at a lot of different factors.
For example, the pricing, the time you are going to have to put into the postgraduate study and the competition.
Sometimes students would even choose their major based on how competitive that position might be.
And, like we said, in the perfect world, we know what we want and we pursue it with full of our effort.
But no one's living in a perfect world.
It has to be, it has, there has to be compromise.
There has to be consideration about the reality.
So, in your opinion, do you think there are some good reasons for following postgraduate study if we believe that delaying seeking a after a job is a bad reason?
In fact, you know, thinking about or figuring out what kind of path you're going through it's kind of a life time course.
That's true too and um, it's good that you know that now you're ahead of the game you have.
I'm still figuring you have a double masters already, don't you?
Even though people are just thinking about different paths and hoping that maybe pursuing a master's degree can help them to find out that path or getting into a career, it's still that it is really hard for people to just decide.
And then, let alone we had a discussion on a lot of people.
They majored in this subject, but when they're getting into job market they just get into another total, different area.
That is a good reason.
That was my reason.
Yes,
When I was in undergraduate, I was studying oh that is a long name research, environment and the management of urban and rural planning.
That was my major in undergraduate.
But after my freshman year I decided wow, I'm not cut out for that and I will not enjoy a career here in this area.
And that's when I started to take part in some kind of examination, some kind of competitions to see maybe I can work in journalism.
And in my postgraduate, I changed career to international journalism.
So, for those of you who decide that you're not perfectly fit for the major you're currently studying, it's never never, too late.
So I agree with Yushun, a career switching would be a good reason to pursue postgraduate study.
Yeah.
And doing it just because let me let me rephrase.
Let me say it like this.
I don't see this as a bad thing.
I feel like we've been kind of talking about this as if it's some kind of tragedy or something.
The enrollment numbers are down, but I don't see this as a bad thing at all.
It's just that young people now are perhaps looking for more rational career planning or personal goals or pursuing things where they have genuine interest, rather than simply enrolling in a program because they think it's the right thing to do.
And there's another advantage to that. for the students who actually enroll.
And I was reading statistics that you can register for the exam and then a lot of students just won't end up showing up.
That happens too.
To the exam, right?
But now we're seeing decreased numbers of the no-shows too.
So that can be seen as a good thing, because the people who are actually there enrolling in the programs are the people that you were talking about before.
You phrased it quite dramatically.
You said, what, push the outer boundaries of human knowledge or something like that.
Yeah, that's what they're doing, scientists.
Okay, sure.
Let's go with that.
But they're there because they want to be there and they know they want to be there, right.
So what does that mean for the quality of the students that are going to end up with those graduate degrees?
They're going to be quite good.
So we're seeing a flooded market now where companies might be looking at a postgraduate degree and saying, oh well, you know, maybe we'll look at other things first.
Um, maybe there will be a reversal of that, where companies will say, oh okay you, you've actually completed your postgraduate degree.
That shows us you were really passionate about that.
Yes and one.
When we talk about these kind of trends or shifting trends, we don't mean to say that it's good or bad.
It's more about figuring out or trying to analyze What does it say for the society?
What does it say about the young people in this generation of young people?
What do they value?
And also we also want to kind of give you a heads up if you didn't just notice these trends just yet about what we are looking at for future.
For example, we know we have already noticed the Little really not dramatic, just little decline in numbers of people signing up for the postgraduate examination.
What does it say for those who are maybe still in their final year in university and thinking about their future?
Can we give them any tips?
Like for students?
Well for the students, don't rush into a decision.
I think would be one good thing to keep in the forefront of your mind.
You can also check out various career options.
You can consider multiple pathways.
You can consider taking a part-time job, while you spend a little bit of time considering your future.
That's something that a lot of people do in other countries, in Canada for sure.
You can focus on internships.
You can focus on hands-on experience.
You can find ways to fill your time if you're uncertain about what you want to do with your next 12 months, can find ways to be, i mean, quite productive with your time.
How about for universities?
I, i for universities.
Um, the thing is that i cannot like, give out.
I can't better your program.
Get those companies in there.
Yes yeah um, the thing is uh, quality and quantity is the thing that universities that they need to consider, or think about.
Schools they may face pressure to maintain, like rigorous standards or supervision while accommodating diverse student needs, right.
So adapting to different needs and maybe these kind of like.
The difference on numbers in several years is showing the trend of the whole market, no matter it's about the university market or the job market.
So institutions they need to balance their enrollment costs and resources, including their dormitories, financial support, or even remain attractive as the form of being competitive in the whole scholar area.
Make students want to go there to get their master's.
Yes.
And also for employers, yes, there are now a lot of different ways to collect talent.
And we have, I think, mentioned this on Roundtable that sometimes we say university students wanted to find their perfect ideal job and it's hard.
Sometimes we say, employers find that it's hard to get the talent they really want.
And the mismatch and how to fix the mismatch would be the ultimate answer the government wanted to give.
And also, maybe I think employers can try a bit harder in that regard as well.
Students would love that.
Students would love that and ultimately, I think education is for you to enrich your life.
It has something to do with future career choices, but it's also about whether or not you want to see the world from a deeper perspective, from a deeper, another way, and I think it's for each and every individual to make that decision and applaud for all of the decisions that you make.
