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Author | Cui Siye
Editor｜Zhan Tengyu
Title image | "Sanyue has a new job"

On July 8, Xiaoyue, a student from Gansu, was admitted as a public-funded English major teacher at a normal university in western China. She was very calm when the result came out.

A few days later, the admission scores for undergraduates were announced one after another. Xiaoyue's score was enough to get into many of her favorite "985" schools, and she felt disappointed when she realized this.

Xiaoyue applied for the "publicly funded normal school student" in advance, which refers to a public education policy for normal school students. During the undergraduate period, the central government will cover the tuition and accommodation fees and provide living allowances. After graduation, publicly funded normal school students must return to the primary and secondary schools where they come from to teach for a period of six years.

Publicly funded normal school students working in urban schools should teach in rural compulsory education schools for at least one year. If they breach the contract, they will need to pay tens of thousands of yuan in liquidated damages to make up for the education expenses during their university years.

(Photo/"Big Exam")

Like Xiaoyue, many high-scoring candidates this year chose to apply for the early admission, including public-funded normal school students, targeted commissioned students, police academies, etc. Most of them have scores higher than "985" and "211". Some studied ordinary undergraduate courses, while others chose junior colleges.

For example, Lishui University, a second-tier university in Zhejiang, had a maximum score of 661 in this year's targeted enrollment, which ranks among the top 10,000 in Zhejiang Province. The major of the admission is financial management, which is a targeted training program for Jingning She Autonomous County, setting a new record for the school's enrollment score. Zhejiang Normal University, another non-key university in Zhejiang, had 26 Zhejiang candidates with college entrance examination scores above 656 in its targeted enrollment results, with the highest score being 670.

The reasons for applying for the exam are almost the same for the candidates: to be one step ahead and to be admitted with an admission certificate.

The appeal of “compilation”

Xiaoyue is a liberal arts student with a college entrance examination score of 606, ranking 582nd in the province and fourth in the school.

For her, if she performs normally, she will get good grades. Her parents both work in the system in a small county town. Their concept is that life should be ordinary and steady. "The system is like a bowl of rice. You won't be full, but you won't starve either."

Mom most wants Xiaoyue to apply to a "non-key" police academy, but Xiaoyue doesn't want to go, thinking that her physical fitness will not be able to keep up after enrollment. But mom keeps persuading her: "As long as you can pass the physical examination, it means your body can adapt." In order to cope with the physical examination of the police academy, mom took Xiaoyue to the hospital to consult about myopia surgery, but the doctor said that even after the operation, she would not be able to recover before the physical examination date, so mom had no choice but to give up.

It was her parents who suggested that she apply for the early admissions of the public-funded normal school. Through repeated persuasion, Xiaoyue could feel her parents' determination to take this path, while she just studied hard before the college entrance examination and did not think carefully about the application. Xiaoyue struggled for a few days and imagined what it would be like to be a teacher. "I didn't feel particularly opposed to it."

Xiaoyue is traveling in Chengdu. (Photo/provided by the interviewee)

A few days later, she filled in the application form for this normal university in the west in the early batch. She knew at that time that she would definitely be admitted with her score. So she just randomly filled in some schools and majors in the ordinary batch.

In addition to "targeted students" like Xiaoyue, the Police Academy is also a popular choice for candidates.

Xiao Ai is a liberal arts student from Shanghai. Because his parents both work in Nanjing, he has been studying in Nanjing. Xiao Ai's college entrance examination score is 551 points (the full score of Shanghai college entrance examination is 660 points), ranking around 7,000 in the city.

It was also the parents' advice for Xiao Ai to apply for the police academy. Xiao Ai's mother works in a bank, and his father is a retired civil servant. They did a lot of homework on the police academy, searched online, and consulted friends. Like a large number of Chinese parents, they hope that their son can take the most secure career path.

Xiao Ai accepted his parents' advice. With his grades, he could be admitted to almost any police academy in the country. However, he did not choose the more famous police academies such as the People's Public Security University of China and the People's Police University of China. Instead, he chose the Customs Anti-smuggling major at Nanjing Police College.

Xiao Ai received the admission letter from the Southern Police. (Photo/provided by the interviewee)

"Because I'm afraid I'll be assigned to a police station in the future." Xiao Ai said that most police school graduates will work in police stations in various places. But the anti-smuggling major that Xiao Ai applied for is a targeted training, and it is the major with the highest score in Nanjing Police College this year. After graduating and passing the public security joint examination, they will be assigned to the customs department where they come from. So Xiao Ai thinks customs anti-smuggling will have some advantages over grassroots public security, "not so tiring."

In addition to this main reason, Xiao Ai also wants to stay in the local area to go to college. Studying in Nanjing and working in Shanghai are his ideal choices. The consensus on targeted majors is that high scores do not necessarily link to good schools. Xiao Ai has no regrets about not being able to go to a "985" university despite having high scores: "Instead of not being able to find a job after graduating from a "985" or "211", it is better to settle on the job first." Xiao Ai's liberal arts class has 30 people in the class, and three of them were admitted to the police academy. There are also many in other classes. "The son of the class teacher is also a candidate this year, and he applied to the Jiangsu Police Academy."

Jiangsu Police College is a popular school that has been mentioned repeatedly this year. It is highly recognized in the province. The minimum admission score for science female students in Jiangsu is 626 points. People joke that Jiangsu Police College is the third "985" university in Jiangsu after Nanjing University and Southeast University.

A more realistic generation

In junior high and high school, Xiaoyue’s ideal direction was actually to study media.

She took a broadcasting and hosting interest class for a while, and was recommended by her teacher to participate in the city's competition. She also worked as a volunteer guide at the museum. These experiences gave her some confidence: "I really liked media-related careers at the time, and my classmates also thought I was quite talented."

(Photo/News Queen)

People around Xiaoyue persuaded her to take the art exam. After comprehensive consideration, Xiaoyue felt that the art exam was expensive and her family was under pressure. She thought that changing to journalism was not only suitable for her but also not too expensive.

When choosing courses in her first year of high school, Xiaoyue followed her parents' advice and chose the traditional physics class, entering the science class. She didn't like chemistry very much, and she had always dreamed of becoming a journalist. After studying for more than a month, she told her parents that she wanted to transfer to the liberal arts class, but her parents couldn't persuade her.

"I was quite proud at the time," Xiaoyue said. "But then I gradually learned about the journalism major and found that it was a little different from what I imagined. Both the postgraduate entrance examination and the employment situation were not optimistic. It didn't seem to be a good choice for children from ordinary families." On the eve of the college entrance examination, Xiaoyue gave up completely. "When filling out the application form, I found that I was very naive before. Later, I realized that I didn't seem to have many opportunities for trial and error, and gradually lost the courage to move forward."

(Photo/News Queen)

When applying for college, Xiaoyue looked through the application reference books issued by the school and found that applying for liberal arts students was "like making a choice on the Titanic". But she did not regret insisting on studying liberal arts: "I really like liberal arts. Studying subjects that interest me makes me more motivated than studying science."

Xiaoyue mentioned her friend Xiaolin, who was her friend in the science class. Similar to Xiaoyue, Xiaolin also wanted to switch to the liberal arts class during that period. She liked Chinese very much and her ideal career in the future was to be a Chinese teacher, but her parents strongly opposed it.

Xiaolin's grades were also excellent, with a college entrance examination score of 614, ranking around 3200 in the province. On the day the results were released, the whole family was very happy, as her score was basically enough to get into a mid-range "985" school.

Compared to Xiaoyue, Xiaolin can apply for more majors because she studies science, but Xiaolin is not interested in almost all science and engineering majors. She wants to apply for Chinese language and literature the most. But the reality is that almost no school's Chinese language and literature major will recruit science students in Gansu. Choosing a major has become a problem for her. Her dream of becoming a Chinese teacher cannot be realized, so she can only try to apply for other normal schools.

After the college entrance examination, Xiaolin went to the library to read books almost every day. She loved reading the Book of Songs and admired Shi Tiesheng. She would copy her favorite passages into a notebook and write reading notes: "I feel very satisfied and happy when I take it out and read it at home."

After the summer vacation began, Xiaolin often went to the library to read. (Photo/Photo provided by the interviewee)

She likes a sentence on the Internet: "If you are not in a hurry to go on, Chinese should be the most beautiful subject."

To outsiders, the six-year service period for government-funded normal school students is not short, but Xiaoyue seems to have made up her mind: "I think that since I have made this choice, it may not only be six years, but a lifetime of 'service period'. My parents have calculated for me that I will go to college at the age of 18, do four years of undergraduate studies, two years of graduate studies, and then stay in one place for another six years. I may need to take root there. By the time I am 30, I may not want to go out again, so I have almost made up my mind to stay in Gansu for the rest of my life."

A few years ago, Xiaoyue didn't think this way. Xiaoyue's hometown is a small county town, which just got rid of the label of "poor county" a few years ago. When she was a child, Xiaoyue's main motivation for studying was to get out of her hometown, work and live in a big city, and see the sights she had never seen before: "I used to like the feeling of big cities very much, such as going out for travel and participating in activities. I especially like the night view of big cities. Because where I live, there is no one on the street at 10 o'clock in the evening, and you can't get a taxi at 11 or 12 o'clock. When I was a child, the white-collar workers on TV lived the life I longed for."

Xiaoyue is traveling in Chengdu. She used to like big cities very much. (Photo/provided by the interviewee)

Later, Xiaoyue chatted with her elder sister who passed the exam and stayed in another city to work. She found that life in big cities was different from what she had imagined: "People like us who went out from small places may face greater pressure outside. No one will support you, so you can only fight on your own. Many people around me advised me that they regretted staying outside and wanted to go home to take the civil service exam. I began to waver in my heart. Since we will all enter the system in the end, it is better to 'get it right the first time' before going to college."

During this time when she was struggling, Xiaoyue's mother's words completely convinced her: "When you become a teacher in the future, you can travel during winter and summer vacations. You can go to any big city you want. You don't have to bear the pressure of the outside world. You can just enjoy the scenery. Isn't that great?"

Xiaoyue later checked a lot of policy information online and learned that in the past, "public teachers" could not take the postgraduate entrance examination, but starting this year, they can choose to study for a postgraduate degree, which gave her confidence in her choice again. She also found that the public-funded normal school students, who were once the "low-score high-report" choice, seemed to have really started to "compete": "I originally thought that normal schools might also be sunset majors, after all, the birth rate is declining now. But unexpectedly, the admission scores for normal schools have increased this year."

After the admission result came out, Xiaoyue told Xiaolin immediately. To her surprise, Xiaolin was also admitted to the same school, majoring in biology, and was also a public-funded teacher training student. In Xiaolin's science class, some students with the same scores as her were admitted to Sun Yat-sen University, but there were also many students who applied for the early admission. In addition to targeted teacher training, many people also choose targeted medicine.

Like Xiaoyue, Xiaolin was also very calm about her admission result. Although she studied at the Normal University, which she liked, she was still more concerned about her favorite Chinese department.

The two friends who seemed to be on different paths at the beginning now seem to have ended up in the same place. "Applying for the exam is really fate," Xiaoyue said.

Graduated students,
There are also troubles

Yin Heng is a graduated medical student who works in a township health center in Sichuan.

Yin Heng works in a health center. (Photo/provided by the interviewee)

In 2015, his college entrance examination score was 515, ranking more than 90,000 in the province, about 10 points less than the first-tier line of that year. In those days, targeted students meant "low score and high application". After the college entrance examination, Yin Heng was only concerned with playing games and did not seriously think about applying for volunteers, nor did he know much about targeted students. His family helped him fill in the application because he heard from relatives that targeted medical students had good treatment, "free tuition, subsidies, low scores, and a regular position".

Yin Heng was admitted to the clinical medicine major of North Sichuan Medical College, and his destination was the district and county next to his hometown. After graduating from undergraduate studies five years later, he applied to the local health bureau and obtained a letter of approval for postgraduate study, and was admitted to Xi'an Medical College for a master's degree in general medicine.

In 2023, after completing his postgraduate study and training, Yin Heng came to the original designated location and worked in a township health center. On the day of reporting, the hospital hung a banner to welcome him: "Warmly welcome full-time graduate student Yin Heng to work in our hospital!" Later, he learned that there were very few undergraduates among the doctors in the township health center, let alone graduate students.

On weekdays, Yin Heng sees patients at outpatient clinics. (Photo/provided by the interviewee)

Yin Heng is the attending physician of the hospital. He usually sees local residents in the outpatient clinic for colds, fevers, headaches, and stomachaches. Sometimes he also has to go to the countryside to give physical examinations to residents and measure blood sugar and blood pressure for the elderly.

Unlike doctors in tertiary hospitals, Yin Heng has to face more trivial issues, such as the social etiquette in the village. Local people always consult doctors they are familiar with and receive infusions, which will be counted as the doctor's workload; the village has limited funds, relatively scarce medical resources, and the hospital lacks many necessary inspection equipment. Unlike large hospitals where each department has a specific division of labor, in township health centers, Yin Heng needs to complete everything from receiving patients to examinations and treatment plans alone.

Yin Heng examines a patient, but the equipment in township health centers is often old. (Photo/Photo provided by the interviewee)

Sometimes, academic qualifications bring extra trouble. Yin Heng once met a male patient from a town. After he came to the hospital, he pointed at him and asked, "Are you the new graduate student? What diseases can you treat?" It sounded a bit provocative. Maybe he saw the banner and wanted to "test" Yin Heng's ability. After getting to know each other, this natural hostility gradually disappeared, and some people occasionally advised Yin Heng, "You are young and should go out to explore, don't stay here."

The health center where Yin Heng works is a self-supporting institution with no additional financial allocations, which puts him under greater financial pressure. Yin Heng's current monthly salary is around 3,000 yuan, which is considered medium-level in the local area. "It was pretty good when I didn't have a car loan or a mortgage and didn't have children, but I may face more pressure in the future," Yin Heng said.

Some of his classmates did not choose to follow the targeted employment, paid a penalty of 100,000 yuan, and went to a second-level or higher hospital. Yin Heng also regretted it. During his fifth year, when he saw his non-targeted classmates signed up with a tertiary hospital, he would also talk to his classmates: How did you get on this path in the first place? If you were not a targeted student, would you have more choices?

Many years later, when Yin Heng learned that targeted students had become so popular, he felt that "times are changing really fast. Today's admission scores may be 30 to 50 points higher than ours back then."

Yin Heng believes that applying for a major is like all other life choices. It all depends on the specific situation. There is no point in following the crowd: "If some people have good family conditions, have many ideas, and want to venture out into the world, there is absolutely no need to apply for a targeted medical student just for the establishment and the subsidy. Because he will definitely regret and worry about this in the future. If the family conditions are average and he likes a simple life, a targeted medical student can actually reflect the value of being a doctor."

(Photo/"Smart Doctor Life")

He feels that even though everyone seems to be aiming for a job, township health centers are still very short of talent: "Many health centers are recruiting for positions with a job quota, but they still can't fill the quota. When people apply for the exam, they may only think about the present, but when they really need to make a job choice, they will still have some concerns."

Yin Heng got married last year. His wife studied law in college and successfully passed the examination to work in the system in Chengdu after graduation. Because his home is not far from Chengdu, his wife can only commute back and forth between the two places. Yin Heng has not fully thought about his future plans: "I may stay, or I may leave. If my source of disease accumulates and my income increases, and considering that my current job is relatively close to home, I may stay in the local area. If the financial pressure is great in the future, I may look for some units with higher income to work."

Can the information gap really be eliminated?

Almost all of these young candidates mentioned the "information gap".

Xiao Ai believes that her choice is related to the elimination of information asymmetry: "People have collected more data and have a richer understanding of the profession. Some suggestions from Zhang Xuefeng or the personal experiences of people who have already "fallen into the pit" will clearly tell you which paths not to take. When making choices, people will be more rational and restrained."

Whether it is the discussions on the Internet or the remarks of application guidance teachers such as Zhang Xuefeng, they all seem to be "protecting" ordinary people. The core of many discussions is how to make more realistic choices.

Many young people are gradually becoming "disenchanted" with their once ideal majors. Similar to Xiaoyue, who no longer has a filter for journalism, Xiaoai also said that he once wanted to study law and apply for the "Five Institutes and Four Departments". However, whether it was the employment situation of law students that he learned about, or relatives and friends who studied law around him, they all tried to dissuade him in various ways.

Many "985" and "211" universities have lowered their admission scores this year, and correspondingly, the scores for early admission institutions have risen. Xiao Ai saw that compared with last year, the score line for Shanghai Customs College in Shanghai has risen by nearly 10 points, and the admission score line for China University of Political Science and Law, which was once very popular, has dropped in many provinces this year.

(Photo/"Bottom Line")

As an economics scholar, Ye Xiaoyang has been engaged in college entrance examination volunteer counseling for 18 years. His research direction is to use behavioral economics and artificial intelligence to improve students' educational decisions. For more than ten years, he has been conducting long-term research on the filling of college entrance examination volunteers in China. On Ye Xiaoyang’s personal public account, he commented on the phenomenon that high-scoring candidates choose to apply for "system-based" colleges and universities: "College entrance examination volunteers are based on multiple preferences to make predictable choices. Some students in the news choose a school purely because of stability and "establishment", without considering any other factors, and may regret it one day. This regret is not only because the times are always changing, and only looking at the present may not necessarily get what you want; it is also because at the age when it is most worthwhile to rush into the vast world like a monster, you put yourself in a cage."

He also respected individual choices: "Some people resigned and returned to their hometowns, while others rushed to take the imperial examinations at night. Everyone gets what they need. Just think it through."

Xiaoyue once posted her hesitation during the application process on a social platform and held a poll. Nearly 300 people participated, and 63% supported her choice of the targeted normal school. The reasons given by supporters were: "stability" and "a good choice for liberal arts students."

(Photo/"Chasing the Light")

Someone also left a message to Xiaoyue: "Don't narrow your path. There is no regret once you sign a contract. You can't see the end of your life. I suggest you think about it carefully." Xiaoyue showed this message to her parents, but they thought, "After you turn 30, you will thank us."

Xiaoyue finally accepted her decision. "Maybe my future is not as clear as some people say online. It may be full of challenges and opportunities. I also believe that I should be able to manage my future life well."

"If you don't consider any practical factors, what major do you most want to study?"

Xiao Ai chose history. "I chose liberal arts because I like history. The school doesn't matter, as long as the history major is strong."

Without the burden of reality, Xiaoyue still wants to study journalism and "choose a university with a better environment."

Her friend Xiaolin said: "My first choice is Chinese language and literature, and I want to learn Japanese the most. I like watching "Detective Conan" very much, and I think the characters in it speak Japanese, which is very cool."

Proofreading: Wheel Cake

Operation: Heehee

Layout: Xian Xiaoling