Eric Fish

Great to see @yuxin_gao writing again, on how the massive expansion of college enrollment in China and subsequent devaluation of degrees partly planted seeds of "lying flat" and the feeling by many youth that the endless rat race won't get them anywhere. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/23/china-meritocracy-youth-burned-out/

Worth remembering that expansion started largely for political reasons during Asian Financial Crisis against strong objections from education officials, who warned as early as 1999 it could give students expectations for jobs the economy couldn't provide. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/674557

TLDR version: During 1997 Asia economic shock, Chinese exports fell dramatically. Chinese economists wanting to grow domestic consumption saw higher ed as great way to do that: high demand for it, lots of associated spending, and it'd keep more youth out of job market for awhile.

But Ministry of Education officials were strongly opposed to the idea of dramatically increasing college enrollment. It's interesting looking back at how presciently at least one of these officials predicted what would end up happening... https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/674557 

In the end, top CCP leaders listened to economists over education experts. They formulated decision over just about 3 months, then gave unis about 3 months notice that they'd be radically expanding recruitment, which shot up 47% year on year that fall. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10670564.2016.1184899 

Predictably, the dash to expand facilities &amp; difficulty finding qualified teachers to match abrupt growth resulted in devaluing education. The Education Ministry tried to rein rapid recruitment expansion, but it kept going for years and quality control struggled to keep up. 

Within a decade, sociologists were noting the "ant tribe" (蚁族) phenomenon: college grads struggling in cities w/ low-pay work/unpaid internships far from what they expected, but persisting with conviction things would turn around and they'd get white-collar job they studied for

Now today we're seeing the "lying flat" movement, with many finally recognizing that the good white-collar job they expected isn't coming, or isn't worth it, so what's the point of busting your ass in the rat race when you're really just on a hamster wheel?

Assuming degree would bring white-collar future was reasonable through early-2000s. Many from older generation especially had that conviction for their kid. Only 5% who took gaokao made it to college in 1977. It was 34% by 1998, but leapt to 56% after 1999 decision. Now it's ~80%

So yes, other countries have similar phenomena of devalued college degrees, youth alienation with capitalist rat race, "lying flat," etc. But the circumstances under which it happened in China are fairly unique, and happened relatively abruptly.

That's all not to say there weren't also benefits from the dramatic growth in college grads. And there are undoubtedly scores of people who've lived better lives than they would have without it...

But the government also sent scores of students to schools that weren't ready to accommodate them for short-term economic reasons, and into a job market with expectations for jobs that wouldn't be there--just as its own Ministry of Education warned would happen.