Today's NYT article sounds eerily familiar to recent American grads.
“College essentially provided them with nothing,” said Zhang Ming, a political scientist and vocal critic of China’s education system. “For many young graduates, it’s all about survival. If there was ever an economic crisis, they could be a source of instability.”
In a kind of cruel reversal, China’s old migrant class — uneducated villagers who flocked to factory towns to make goods for export — are now in high demand, with spot labor shortages and tighter government oversight driving up blue-collar wages.
But the supply of those trained in accounting, finance and computer programming now seems limitless, and their value has plunged. Between 2003 and 2009, the average starting salary for migrant laborers grew by nearly 80 percent; during the same period, starting pay for college graduates stayed the same, although their wages actually decreased if inflation is taken into account.
This is worsened by the fact that Chinese colleges are not free and are expensive for most Chinese families (often entire savings), and there are few options for loans so many generations of the extended family pool money together to send the child to college.
And it's not for lack of skills these college grads aren't getting jobs, but a lack of the right connections and an economy structured for cheap manufactured exports.
[China's] economy, despite its robust growth, does not generate enough good professional jobs to absorb the influx of highly educated young adults. And many of them bear the inflated expectations of their parents, who emptied their bank accounts to buy them the good life that a higher education is presumed to guarantee.
And as the children of peasants or factory workers, they lack the essential social lubricant known as guanxi, or personal connections, that greases the way for the offspring of China’s nouveau riche and the politically connected
3592 top-tier college grads apply for every coveted government job
"I'll take the job for 0 salary", "Just cover my living expenses!" to a recruiter
Frustration
Desperation