On December 23, China Education** officially released the "2024 National Graduate Enrollment Survey Report"!
The table of contents and summary of the 2024 National Graduate Admissions Survey Report are as follows:
1. The number of applicants for postgraduate entrance examination has declined.
1.1 The "postgraduate examination fever" has cooled down, and candidates are becoming more and more rational in applying for the exam.
1.1.1 The number of applicants for postgraduate entrance examination in some provinces has declined.
1.1.2 The number of applicants from top universities has declined The number of applicants from "double non-resident" universities continues to grow.
1.1.3 The proportion of direct employment of fresh graduates has increased.
1.1.4 Due to the spillover effect, the number of people going abroad for graduate studies has increased.
1.2 Bachelor's degree programs continue to grow, with nearly eighty percent of colleges and universities accounting for more than 60% of the program
1.3 Humanities and social sciences majors are highly competitive and involuted.
1.4. The number of guaranteed research places has increased, and the proportion of exemptions has remained stable.
2. The scale of graduate student enrollment continues to expand, and the support capacity in key areas has been enhanced.
2.1 Graduate enrollment has grown steadily.
2.2 The scale of graduate enrollment has expanded, and the resources of colleges and universities have become increasingly tight.
2.3 The growth rate of master's student enrollment in some universities has slowed down.
2.3.1 The enrollment of doctoral students in prestigious universities has increased significantly.
2.4 The enrollment of science, engineering, agriculture and medicine continues to grow, and medicine leads the growth rate.
2.5 The proportion of students enrolled in professional and master's programs far exceeds that of master's students.
2.5.1 The duration of post-secondary and master's degrees in more colleges and universities has been extended.
2.5.2 Some colleges and universities have suspended the enrollment of master's programs.
2.6. Serve the national development strategy and vigorously develop interdisciplinarity.
2.6.1. The new version of the professional catalogue strengthens the support of disciplines in key fields.
2.7 The overall scale of doctoral enrollment continues to expand, and the enrollment of doctoral students shows a high growth trend.
2.7.1 The Ph.D. application assessment system is implemented.
3. Strengthen the quality of degree awarding.
3.1 Optimize the layout 29 colleges and universities have revoked 42 degree points.
3.1.1 Statistics on the revocation of degree authorization points from 2016 to 2022.
3.2. Optimize the structure of graduate talent training.
3.3 For the first time, the subjects of the Master of Education business course were unified nationwide.
3.4. Strictly regulate the enrollment requirements and allow cross-professional adjustment.
The 2024 National Graduate Enrollment Survey Report is carried out from three dimensions: application status, recruitment situation, and degree awarding quality.
The number of applicants for the 2024 National Master's Admission Examination is 4.38 million. This is a decrease of 360,000 from the 4.74 million applicants in 2023, which is also the first decline in the number of graduate school applicants since 2015, which has continued to grow rapidly. The cooling of the "postgraduate examination fever" also shows that candidates are becoming more and more rational in applying for the examination.
The comprehensive reasons for the cooling of the "postgraduate fever" are as follows:
Reason 1: There is a large gap in expectations and an increase in the number of direct employment.
With the continuous growth of the scale of graduate students, there is a large gap between the involution of academic qualifications and employment expectations in the job market, and many students who are motivated by employment considerations rather than academic interests give up the postgraduate entrance examination and choose direct employment, and the number of direct employment of college graduates has increased.
Reason 2: The number of master's degrees decreases and the number of professional masters increases.
In recent years, well-known universities have also given up the enrollment of some master's degrees and directly "direct doctorate". For high-level applied talents, the tuition fee is relatively high, and most of them do not have state subsidies. At the same time, according to the training requirements, the duration of education has also been extended to 3 years, and various factors have brought down the economic cost of the master's degree.
Reason 3: The quality control of graduate education is becoming more and more strict, and interdisciplinary transfers are allowed.
Since the beginning of this year, extending the number of years of master's and doctoral studies and ensuring the quality of postgraduate training has become an important part of the reform of the quality of graduate education in various schools. This undoubtedly also "dissuaded" a group of students. Giving autonomy to colleges and universities and allowing interdisciplinary adjustment is obviously a positive response to the general direction of interdisciplinary talent training.