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this is the “education weekly insights” column of tencent news education channel. each issue will analyze and comment on hot topics in education, policy directions or personal opinions in the past week.

author: ding yang

the old phenomenon of "undergraduate-graduate upside down" has aroused heated discussion. the fundamental reason is the anxiety about the devaluation of graduate education

this week's education buzzword is "graduate student."

first, "the total number of graduate students at lanzhou university exceeds that of undergraduates for the first time" became a hot search, and the phenomenon of "undergraduate-research inversion" in colleges and universities attracted attention. netizens exclaimed, "will anyone on the street be a graduate student in the future?" and "it's not far from phds delivering food." later, the news that "yunnan baoshan university plans to hire three masters as dormitory managers" triggered discussions on the devaluation of academic qualifications as an example. at the weekend, a news that "the results of the handyman recruitment at the suzhou affiliated high school of nanjing university of aeronautics and astronautics were announced, and a 24-year-old master of physics was expected to be hired" made more people unable to hold back, and some netizens lamented, "it's a waste of resources, a waste of talent, sad! heartache."

it should be pointed out that the suzhou affiliated high school of nanjing university of aeronautics and astronautics immediately responded, saying that the staff made a mistake and the applicant was actually an undergraduate. however, the party secretary of the school added, "he is an undergraduate and has not yet obtained a master's degree" - the implication is that the student is studying for a master's degree, but has not yet received a degree certificate. in other words, it does not alleviate people's anxiety about the devaluation of graduate students.

to some extent, as some people in the education sector have pointed out, the fact that the “undergraduate-graduate inversion” has become a hot topic in universities is a fuss over nothing, because this phenomenon has already existed. a quick search revealed that a report in china youth daily in 2006 mentioned that “the number of graduate students in several universities such as renmin university and peking university has exceeded the number of undergraduate students.” in other words, the “undergraduate-graduate inversion” had already appeared about 20 years ago. in a horizontal comparison, this is not a strange phenomenon abroad. take the massachusetts institute of technology as an example. the latest number of undergraduate students on campus is 4,576, accounting for 38%, and the number of graduate students is 7,344, accounting for 62%.

the reason why people are making a fuss about this recently is probably not because people are generally unaware of the phenomenon of "undergraduate-graduate upside down", but because the severity of this phenomenon has exceeded people's psychological threshold. according to incomplete statistics, among the "double first-class" universities alone, at least 49 have enrolled more graduate students this year than undergraduates.

quoted from the educational self-media "soft science"

if you understand my country's current education policy, you will find that this is still just the beginning. at a press conference of the ministry of education on march 1 this year, guo peng, director of the development planning department of the ministry of education, said, "in the next step, the ministry of education will steadily expand the scale of postgraduate talent training." to what extent will the expansion be expanded?

according to well-known education expert xiong bingqi, the number of registered graduate students per thousand people (note: the value obtained by dividing the number of graduate students in school by the national population of the year) is an indicator for evaluating a country's graduate education. in 2021, there were 3.3324 million graduate students in my country, and the number of registered graduate students per thousand people was 2.38. this figure is 7 to 8 in developed countries, and the number of registered graduate students per thousand people in the united states is more than 9. "therefore, from the perspective of increasing the number of registered graduate students per thousand people, there is still a lot of room for my country to develop graduate education. that is, if the number of registered graduate students per thousand people is increased to 4, the number of graduate students in school must reach 5.6 million, and about 1.9 million graduate students can be enrolled each year. enrollment can be doubled on the current basis."

after the expansion of graduate students, quality concerns are difficult to resolve

as the number increases, it is bound to cause concerns about quality. chen zhiwen, a well-known education expert, pointed out that "graduate students are not undergraduates. their training is a bit like a master training an apprentice. one of the core resource supports is the number and quality of tutors." in his opinion, "there are more than 400,000 tutors for graduate students in my country. even in universities like tsinghua university and peking university, professors generally only have one doctoral quota per year, and many researchers at the chinese academy of sciences do not even have a doctoral enrollment quota per year. in other words, there are still basic training resources. this training capacity needs to be released." but the problem is that the current increase in the number of graduate students is really too fast - in 2016, the number of master's students was only 589,000, and in 2023, just seven years later, this number has soared by 93% to 1.148 million. no matter how many basic training resources there are, the pressure is still very high.

another difficult-to-overcome concern is that as the number of admissions increases, the average quality of students is bound to decline. not to mention, the expansion of undergraduate admissions in my country has not been synchronized with the expansion of graduate admissions - also from 2016 to 2023, the number of ordinary undergraduate admissions increased from 4.05 million to 4.78 million, an increase of only 18%. this is equivalent to one master's student in eight undergraduates, but now one in four can produce a master's degree, further lowering the threshold for graduate students. in contrast, although the ratio of masters to undergraduates in developed countries is relatively high, the key is to maintain it relatively stable. taking the united states as an example, from 2010 to 2020, the ratio of master's degrees to bachelor's degrees issued in 10 years has been around 0.41.

in the past decade, the number of bachelor's and master's degrees issued in the united states has increased, but the proportion has remained basically unchanged. quoted from the "state of education in the united states 2023 report"

it should also be pointed out that the number of registered graduate students per thousand people in developed countries is indeed higher, but unlike what many people imagine, this high number is not simply because a higher proportion of people will continue their studies after graduating from undergraduate school, but is also related to the concept of "lifelong learning". taking the united states as an example, in the spring of 2024, there will be about 3.07 million graduate students in the united states, but among them, as many as 1.35 million are over 30 years old, including 580,000 over 40 years old, which is already beyond the age range of chinese master's students. in other words, many people in developed countries go to graduate school because they need to, whether it is because of personal interest or work needs. in contrast, many chinese students choose to study for a master's degree in a sense to extend their time in school and postpone employment, which is equivalent to studying in their fifth or sixth year.

after the devaluation of academic qualifications, improving one's comprehensive ability is the only choice

so, how should one deal with the situation of applying for dormitory management or handyman jobs after graduating from graduate school?

when the master's degree inevitably depreciates, we need to be aware of some derivative issues. for example, the phenomenon of "first degree discrimination" may become more prominent. although we all know that this is a bad phenomenon and inappropriate practice, as the number of masters increases, some employers may focus on earlier degrees in recruitment.

in other words, the effect of the postgraduate entrance examination as a "second college entrance examination" is not so good (what is frustrating is that even if the effect is not so good, the postgraduate entrance examination is becoming more "competitive") - so, students and parents need to pay more attention to the first college entrance examination.

if you don’t do well in the first college entrance examination, you need to realize that taking the postgraduate entrance examination to “turn things around” may not be a reliable option. some people may argue that if you don’t take the postgraduate entrance examination, you can’t even be a dormitory manager or handyman. indeed, this may be the case at a certain time and place, but in terms of ability requirements, dormitory managers and handymen are jobs that do not require postgraduate study to do. this resource mismatch is ultimately an abnormal and rare phenomenon.

if you don’t rely on the postgraduate entrance examination to “turn things around”, what else can you rely on? it is foreseeable that in addition to examining earlier academic qualifications, employers will pay more attention to the comprehensive ability of applicants, including whether they have real work skills, whether they have internship experience in large companies, whether they are impressive in written tests and interviews, etc. of course, these are all old sayings, but now that master’s degrees and even doctoral degrees are constantly depreciating, students can only find ways to improve themselves in addition to academic qualifications.

previous education week insights——