Postgraduate Educational Aspirations and Policy Implications: A case study of university students in western China

Abstract

China's educational reform from the late 1990s, has substantially increased university capacity. This has been most evident in undergraduate enrolments. As an increasingly large cohort of university graduates enters the job market yearly, the demand for university graduates has not caught up with supply. Some university students plan to pursue postgraduate studies in order to delay their entry into the competition for jobs and to improve their educational credentials. This paper reports on findings from a survey of university students in Xi'an, China, identifying the types of students who aspire to postgraduate education. The findings confirm the importance of three sets of factors: (1) parents' education and financial capacity; (2) university attended; and (3) academic performance. The paper argues that educational policy change in China has resulted in students having to pay tuition fees and having responsibility for finding jobs, thus creating conditions conducive to students with better family and financial resources, and better academic standing, to aspire to postgraduate education. Further policy implications of these findings regarding the expansion, financing and affordability of graduate education in China are discussed.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Xi'an Jiaotong University, and especially Professor Wang Hongbo, Dean of College of Humanities and Social Sciences, for providing the support and encouragement in completing the survey; and Professors Hao Juan and Wang Shengli, for planning and supervising the data collection at Shaanxi Normal University and making the data available to the authors. The authors appreciate the assistance of many graduate students from both universities who administered and collected the questionnaires. Professor Terry Wotherspoon provided helpful comments on a version of the paper. The authors are solely responsible for the use and interpretation of the data in this paper.