Chinese Graduate School Applicants Drop for First Time in Nine Years

What’s new: China’s number of applicants to graduate schools dropped for the first time in nine years as jobseekers see a declining advantage to having a master’s degree in a bleak job market.

The number of graduate school applicants has climbed every year since 2015, and nearly tripled to 4.74 million for the class starting in 2023 from 1.65 million in 2015. But the number of applicants for the class starting in 2024 dropped by 358,000, the first decline in nine years.