Young People in China Face Job-Hunting Challenges, Leading to a Surge in Graduate Applicants and Resulting in Insufficient Dormitory Space

What About Professional Master’s Students?

When universities’ infrastructure construction cannot keep up with the pace of expansion, no longer providing dormitories for some master’s students becomes a reluctant but quick solution.

Fudan University explicitly stated in its 2019 enrollment brochure that it would no longer provide dormitories for professional master’s students. Huazhong University of Science and Technology also stated in its enrollment brochure that it would only provide one year of accommodation for professional master’s students starting from the 2021 cohort. Nanjing University also no longer provides on-campus accommodation for professional degree master’s students of the 2023 cohort in principle, but the school offers appropriate transportation subsidies to full-time professional degree master’s students.

According to incomplete statistics from the Economic Observer, universities that have already published their 2024 enrollment brochures, including Peking University, Beijing Normal University, Nanjing University, Nankai University, and Fudan University, have clearly stated that they will no longer provide dormitories for professional master’s students.

To solve the accommodation problem for full-time professional master’s students, some schools are also coordinating social forces. In 2019, Fudan University rented Ai Jiu Apartments, 6 kilometers away from the school, where students can pay only 1,600 yuan for a year’s rent. However, apart from impoverished students, the school only provides one year of accommodation for first-year students.

Commuting time becomes the biggest trouble for those living in off-campus apartments. A current graduate student at Fudan mentioned that although the school provides scheduled shuttle buses on weekdays, the bus schedule does not fully match his class times. Many students still choose to commute on their own, and it takes nearly an hour to travel from the apartment to Fudan’s Handan campus by transferring between two buses or subways, with waiting and travel time longer than the daily class time.

Even so, only about half of the professional master’s students can become the “lucky ones” who move into Ai Jiu Apartments. A law graduate student at Fudan, Xiao Ying, mentioned that Fudan’s professional master’s program requires a lottery, with a hit rate of about 55%. Students who did not win the lottery can receive a subsidy of 800 yuan per month for a total of 10 months.

“The subsidy is almost a drop in the bucket for rent. The rent for shared single rooms near the school is almost around 3,000 yuan.” Xiao Ying calculated that the tuition for a three-year law professional master’s program is about 120,000 yuan. With rent and living expenses, the cost of graduate studies exceeds 300,000 yuan.

The tension in dormitories also puts pressure on living conditions. A doctoral student at Fudan told the Economic Observer that during his master’s studies at ECNU, he lived in an off-campus apartment building rented by the school, where 8 students shared one bathroom. In the summer, disputes over showering were common. Now, as a doctoral student at Fudan, the bathroom is shared by 6 people. He is worried that due to the dormitory shortage, doctoral students may also not be able to move into single rooms.

A staff member from East China Normal University also mentioned that due to the dormitory shortage, the tradition of doctoral students living in single rooms was broken this year, and some doctoral students will also be assigned to double rooms.

The imbalance between supply and demand for graduate dormitories is inseparable from the large-scale expansion of professional master’s programs in China in recent years. According to the “2024 National Graduate Enrollment Survey Report” released by China Education Online, the number of professional master’s enrollments in China grew from 197,000 in 2012 to 649,000 in 2021. Ministry of Education data shows that in 2022, nearly 700,000 professional degree master’s students were enrolled, accounting for more than 60%.

Ren Youqun, director of the Degree Management and Graduate Education Department of the Ministry of Education, stated that by focusing on national major strategies, key areas, and major social needs, the proportion of professional degree graduate students will be further increased. By the end of the “14th Five-Year Plan,” the enrollment scale of professional degree master’s students will be expanded to about two-thirds of the total master’s enrollment. At the same time, the number of doctoral professional degree students enrolled will be significantly increased.