At China’s Top Schools, Good Isn’t Always Enough

文章预览

As the competition gets fiercer, even the winners worry their success is only temporary. This year’s gaokao college entrance exam season is over, and China’s Class of 2024 is checking the mail for their acceptance letters. The biggest winners of this annual ritual are those admitted to one of China’s prestigious “985” universities: A set of 39 higher education institutions singled out for increased funding in 1998 by the “985 Project,” which aims to create world-class universities on the Chinese mainland. But acceptance into a 985 university is no guarantee of an easy life, or even an easy job search. Earlier this year, my research team conducted in-depth interviews with 65 students from 985 universities; what we found was a widespread, shared anxiety about the value of their degrees in a rapidly changing social landscape. Typically, students who get into 985 universities view themselves as winners of a meritocratic system characterized by a set of strict, clear rules. ………………………………