Lately, all kinds of bloggers have been posting about college application advice as college entrance exam scores come out near the end of June. Headline News compiles several blog articles on this topic.
Blogger 1 says, “Exam scores are coming out soon, and the newest class of freshmen will be checking in at college soon. Congratulations! But this class of college students are pretty unlucky. Apparently, tuition has been rising all over the country, and that’s not very friendly to people dependent on low-income parents. And there’s plenty of people waiting to exploit new college students. For example, application advisors are asking for as much as 15K per person for counselling.
Do you really need counselling for college application? This is obviously a pointless question. Three years ago, if you paid money for a counsellor, they’d tell all STEM students to major in IT. Now, IT majors are way oversupplied, and AI can write code too. The luckiest few become a programming monkey at a big IT company, and get fired by 35.
All applications for the purpose of getting a high salary is pointless. This is ruining college students and ruining higher education. Only students that understand what they’re good at and love what they do can actually properly learn their majors. Our universities should be more like western institutions and let students change their majors freely in their first year. This way, we can avoid a lot of regrets brought on by mistaken choices.
So, people who are looking to apply, listen to me and don’t pay for application counselling. It’s a tax on low IQ.
Back to the proper topic, though, although college tuition is rising, subsidies for international students are also rising. Shanghai’s East China University of Science and Technology has risen the yearly tuition of STEM majors, Engineering majors, and student athletes by 54% a year, to 7700 RMB per year. Sichuan universities are also raising tuition on various majors, some by as much as 41%. Similar things are happening in Sha’anxi, Shandong, Anhui, Liaoning, Henan, and Hebei. Tuition is rising by at least 30-40%.
The reason is pretty understandable. It’s been three years of lockdowns. Nobody has money right now. Of course institutions has to charge higher fees. But what people don’t understand is while Chinese students are having to pay more, international students are getting more subsidies.
There are claims that Qinghua University (top 2) gives each international student as much as 200K per year per student, waives all tuition, and covers all living expenses, dorm fees, and even tickets to and from China. Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics has 70 million RMB set aside for subsidies for international students in its budget, highest in the country, far exceeding the 56 million in Beijing University (top 2)’s budget, or Qinghua University’s 47 million.
Hubei has substantial subsidies for African and Latino students too, 34 million at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and 32 million at Wuhan University. And it’s gotten on the news before that not only does Shandong University waive all expenses for black international students, but assign each student 3 female locals to help them learn Chinese.
Most international students live in luxury two-person dorms, while Chinese students squeeze in six-person dorms without AC. Chinese students are even required to clean the rooms of the international students.
The fact that international students are getting so much financial aid makes people feel like these institutions really aren’t that short on money. What is the purpose in giving international students better treatment than your own citizens?
The official government explanation is that it increases international communication, increasing China’s influence on the world. Schools have their own consideration too—number of international students is important in your ranking on international charts.
When it comes to higher education in China, there’s too much to complain about to write here. The top university in China, Qinghua University, has 80% of its students study overseas in Europe or America. Many of these students end up staying forever. A lot of the students who left China have went on to make groundbreaking accomplishments in technology. For example, there are a lot of Qinghua graduations who work at Open AI. Why can’t these people succeed in China, but they can succeed in the west? Chinese people are often considered just as smart as Jews, but not a single person has managed to win a Nobel Prize while within China.
If Chinese universities want to improve their rankings, they need to do it with actual educational ability and research results, not spending money on bribing international students.
Chinese students go through devastating competition in order to get to university, and once they’re there, they’re like released wild horses. University becomes a haven for gaming, for dating, for drinking and smoking. Most students choose to play around for four years. And it’s not just them—the teachers and professors are also playing. They’re playing with their female students, they’re playing with fake theses, they’re competing for nicer titles and better performance reviews. They become entrepreneurs, apply for investment, and make money. Their students refer to them as “boss”.
How dare universities that care this little about actual teaching and research buy better rankings on international charts by giving African students six figures a year? Can we actually return to the roots of education? Can we look at the universities at the beginning of Nationalist China, where countless titans of research were born? Can we cancel all special privileges we give to international students, and use that money to give hardworking Chinese families some breathing room? Can we stop professors from being “bosses”, and force them to actually sit down and do some research? Can we burn all fake theses and throw out all fake job titles, and only rank people by actual accomplishments? Can we leave female uni students alone and don’t act like monsters to them?
Of course, all of this is harder than getting to the moon. I’m just complaining pointlessly on the internet. This isn’t any more useful than farting into the wind. It’s all pointless. Guess I’ve wasted your time.”
Blogger 2 writes, “When it comes to college applications, there’s a huge difference between men and women. For men, don’t apply to the top universities. Your top priority when considering where to apply is where you want to eventually buy a house. Go to universities in that city. Right now, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen are way too expensive. There’s no way. Within the actual city, the cheapest you’ll find is at least 3.5 million RMB. And that’s buying a 40-year-old tiny, broken down shack. The kind that’s covered in black grease that’s older than you. Raising a family in that environment is torture.
I’d suggest you consider Chengdu, Chongqing, or Changsha. These are all big cities with over 10 million population, plenty of infrastructure, with pretty girls and a strong economy. There’s differences between them, of course. Around Chengdu, most people don’t want a bride price, but the houses are a little more expensive. Changsha asks for a bride price, but houses are a little cheaper. If you add it together, it’s all about the same. The best city among these three is definitely Chengdu, because of great employment opportunities. Whereas Changsha and Chongqing only really have the same kind of jobs available.
Wuhan has a low salary, and expensive housing and high bride prices. Tianjin is even worse. Tianjin is in the north, where people want six-figures for bride price. It’s practically robbery. I don’t know if Chaoyang wants bride price or not. I guess not for locals.
If your parents are still working, then it’s simple. Pick Dongguan University of Technology or Zhejiang Sci-Tech University. Be careful about choosing University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, because it’s right in the centre of the city, with tons of cheap, broken-down, old houses around it. The new houses there are easily 100K per square metre, and it’s way too much for a new family. And in the city centre, they’re mostly looking for business majors when it comes to employment. STEM majors aren’t that useful there. You’ve got to be cautious.
For girls, it’s the other way around. You don’t need to worry about the price of houses much. It’s more about your personal capabilities. Your age, your appearance, your degree of education, your workplace, and your family. That’s the cards in your hand. If you’ve got a pair of Aces, you’re good to go. If you’ve only got one Ace, that’s not good enough. But worst case scenario, make your dad work a little harder and boost you up a bit.
If you’ve got a good hand to play, then you can go to whichever city you want. As for majors, look into teaching, nursing, pharmacy, or accounting. There’s lot of demand in these fields, and you can only find proper friends once you’ve got proper work. Of course, there’s no need to work anymore after you’re married. Make your husband turn in his income.
Another point—now, big cities don’t really encourage full-time housewives. They certainly exist, but the culture is all fucked up. They want women to be gorgeous and all made up, and be a professional career woman, and do everything at home. Men want way too much. Do with that what you will.”
Blogger 3 writes, “The kids going off to university today, for the vast majority of them, they’re going to face a mid-life crisis in their career between 35 to 45. Because a much younger generation than them has just left university, with brand new knowledge. They can’t copy their fathers, who graduated university before 2010, because back then, only 10-20% of people even got higher education, and a rapidly developing economy has endless demand for skilled labour that the universities couldn’t keep up with. This means that their fathers never had to deal with a mid-life crisis, and could just coast on their experience until it’s time to retire.
So, when those people are helping their kids plan a future, they’re trying to carve a canoe into a sword. They’re hoping to hop onto some guaranteed great platform that’ll promise a lifetime of comfort. That time has passed. There won’t be another chance like this again. You have to choose a major where you can learn actual skills, and use your own hardwork and talent to ensure you’re never eliminated by the constant wheel of time.
What’s a major that teaches actual skills? The easiest standard is just to look up this university’s international ranking. If it doesn’t have an international ranking, then check other Chinese universities and where their majors are ranked internationally, and compare your school to them using China’s domestic rankings. Don’t go to a low-ranked school. What does being low-ranked mean? It means that this type of major will probably get a lot of funding right after you graduate, and your much more competitive underclassmen are going to crush you like a wave.
It’s a simple logic. If you’re going to learn, you’re going to learn the newest and the best. You can’t be studying a major whose curriculum hasn’t changed since 1982, or you’ll just be cannon fodder in the future.”
Blogger 4 writes, “I see Journalism majors getting mad at Zhang Xuefeng again, using himself as an example. You know, from his experience over 20 years ago. I mean, to be honest, 20 years ago, choosing a major actually mattered. Obviously, majoring in medicine was a lot more useful than majoring in journalism. (Unless journalism is your life-long dream or something, but then this discussion doesn’t apply to you).
Before 2006, if you graduated from Sichuan Medical University, then maybe you’ll have a hard time making it into a major hospital in a second-line city like Hangzhou. But you can at least get into a mid-sized or smaller hospital. If you go to a smaller town, you can get into the best hospital there easily. So long as you do your basic job every day, you’ll be at least a deputy director there. That’s solidly middle-class. If you know how to switch departments, and go to dentistry, or orthodontics, or optometry, or plastic surgery, you’d be middle-class even by international standards. You can study for your Master’s Degree while still employed. If you’re particularly talented, you’ll probably be a field leader. Sure, you work long hours, but your path is set. You can’t possibly compare if you graduated from Sichuan University with a Journalism degree.
Sure, I don’t really recommend studying medicine anymore. These last couple of years, it’s a lot harder to actually get a job. But that’s separate. It’s hard to get a job no matter what you major in. That’s why my opinion is, it doesn’t really matter what you major in anymore.”
Blogger 5 writes, “This is the best comment I’ve seen in response to Zhang Xuefeng’s advice. “Zhang Xuefeng is approaching this from the most profit-minded angle. All he cares about is whether it’s easy to find employment, whether you can transition to be a civil servant. And most people who listen to his content are looking for this. If you’ve already got a clear goal or dream in mind, then Zhang Xuefeng himself would say then you don’t need him.”
“His goal has always been to help uni students be able to survive. To be able to get used to and fit into this society. He’s never been about pursuing any kind of ideal.”
“Yeah, you don’t need to watch him if you’ve got your own goals and dreams. His purpose is in giving people all the information they need to make a decision about what gets you the best jobs and wages and has opportunities for the future.””
“The kids going off to university today, for the vast majority of them, they’re going to face a mid-life crisis in their career between 35 to 45. Because a much younger generation than them has just left university,"
Wait, what? How is a younger generation leaving university at the time the older generation is entering it?
Is Zhang Xufeng an influencer