This year, 12.9 million people registered for the gaokao, the main university entrance exam — 450,000 fewer than a year earlier (in 2025 the drop was 70,000).
The trend is taking hold: more and more teenagers in China are deciding not to pursue higher education at all.
For decades, the gaokao was considered just about the toughest exam in the world, and families treated it as a fork in the road that would determine the rest of a child’s life. But attitudes are changing, and the reason is simple — a degree is no longer a guarantee of a job. Amid the economic slowdown, youth unemployment in China stood above 16% in April, and on top of that, a record 12.7 million graduates will enter the job market this summer.
Because of the glut of workers, employers are hiring only graduates of prestigious universities and paying virtually no attention to degrees from lesser institutions. As a result, more and more young people are choosing colleges and vocational training that is more closely tied to the needs of industry. In Beijing in May, hundreds of parents lined up to enroll their children in vocational-technical schools. In Shanghai, college enrollment has grown by 15% over three years.
Against this backdrop, Chinese youth are drawn to simple trades. Recently, a farmer named Zuo Xiaoyong posted a job ad seeking two herders to tend livestock on the remote steppes near the border with Mongolia. Within hours it had racked up 59 million views on Weibo, and more than 700 people responded to the two openings — not only rural residents, but also office workers from Shanghai and Chongqing, factory workers, and even university graduates.
