China’s Colleges Hike Tuition Amid Weak Job Market for Graduates
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News Analysis
More than 20 provinces across China have raised university tuition fees for the upcoming academic year, despite a growing number of graduates struggling to find jobs.
Experts say the hikes reflect deep structural problems in the communist country’s higher education system, including years of overexpansion, declining state funding, and a widening gap between academic programs and labor market demand.
In May, a 25-year-old Chinese woman, shared her story on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, under the username “Li Ya.” After graduating from Dalian Medical University in China, she was unable to find a stable job in her field. She ended up selling ice cream from a roadside stall while sharing her struggles online.
Her video resonated with many social media users. Within days, the topic surged to the top of China’s trending lists. Li said the university later contacted her, demanding that the video be taken down.
Li is not alone. Chinese social media platforms are filled with stories of college graduates and postgraduate students who have turned to street vending, food delivery, farming, and other means to make ends meet. These accounts have raised growing concerns that Chinese university degrees, once seen as symbols of upward mobility, are rapidly losing their value.
Systemic Diploma Devaluation
According to Frank Tian Xie, a professor in business at the University of South Carolina Aiken, the root problem lies in China’s aggressive and misaligned expansion of its higher education system.“Chinese universities have expanded blindly,” he told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times. “The entire educational system is distorted and disconnected from market demand.”
Data reported by Chinese state-run media show that between 1998 and 2023, undergraduate enrollment in China grew 7.3 times. Graduate programs saw even more explosive growth, with master’s degree enrollment increasing nearly 20-fold, and graduate programs by 10-fold.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify these claims.
Li Yuanhua, a Chinese historian based in Australia, told the publication that China does not need that many graduates, pointing out that “university programs are still being offered based on state planning, not societal demand.”
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“Students graduate with degrees for which there are no available job opportunities,” he said.
Data from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences show that about one-third of college graduates work in fields unrelated to their major, and a separate report by Chinese state-controlled Sina Education pegged that number at 26 percent.
Rising Tuition
For the 2025 academic year, more than 20 Chinese provinces have announced fee hikes, averaging between 10 and 15 percent. In major cities such as Shanghai and provinces such as Sichuan and Jilin, the average tuition increase ranges from 20 to 35 percent, according to various Chinese state media reports.For example, Beijing Jiaotong University, often viewed as a prestigious institution, raised its annual tuition from 85,000 yuan ($11,700) to 105,000 yuan ($14,630), an increase of 24 percent. Meanwhile, Shanghai Institute of Visual Art, a private college, hiked its tuition by 36 percent, from 50,000 ($7,000) to 68,000 yuan ($9,500).
Some analysts say tuition fees are soaring due to a state funding crisis. In 2025, China’s Ministry of Education cut higher education funding by nearly 5 percent compared to the previous year, according to Chinese state-controlled media.
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“Schools are trying to fill the budget shortfall by raising tuition,” Li said. “It’s the simplest option.”
Some universities have turned to monetizing every possible asset, including charging students hourly for library use and gym access, renting out campus facilities, or selling naming rights to lecture halls and classrooms, according to a previous report by the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times.
Private Colleges
China’s private colleges are under even greater stress. Of the 3,167 higher education institutions in the country, 829 are privately operated, according to Chinese state media Xinhua. These schools often charge double or triple the tuition of public colleges but face declining enrollment.Demographic changes are exacerbating the issue, particularly with fewer children being born in recent years.
“The first to feel the hit from population decline will be private colleges,” Xie said. “They’re already facing an existential crisis.”
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In 2023, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) admitted that the Chinese population recorded negative growth for the first time in more than six decades, decreasing by 850,000 in 2022.
Many private institutions are owned by for-profit education groups, some with large profit margins. For example, Yuhua Education reported a net profit rate of 47.2 percent, higher than most publicly listed companies in China, according to Chinese finance media outlets.
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For many families, the rising cost of tuition is a heavy financial burden. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the median disposable income in urban areas in 2024 was 49,302 yuan ($6,870), and 19,605 yuan ($2,732) in rural areas, often less than what it costs to send one child to college for a year.
Yet students are not reaping the returns. Chinese state-controlled media outlet Sina Finance reported that the average starting monthly salary for college graduates was 6,199 yuan ($862); only 7 percent reported making more than 10,000 yuan ($1,393).
“Why would a family spend tens of thousands on a degree that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on?” Li said. “Many can’t even afford public university anymore, let alone a private one.”
Cheng Wen and Yi Ru contributed to this report.
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