Chinese students join military as stepping stone to university degree

In the last of a four-part series on China’s universities and campus life, Alcott Wei investigates why army life has become an attractive option for many of the country’s young people in their quest for a university degree. To read the other stories in the series, click here.

For Alan Yuan, joining China’s military wasn’t so much about the lofty goal of serving his country. Instead, spending two years in the barracks was a short cut to a university degree.

“That’s why I chose to enlist. I was exempted from the examination required to transfer from a junior college to a university because of my military service,” said Yuan, who previously studied at Shanghai Urban Construction Vocational College and was accepted to Shanghai Jian Qiao University last year when he left the military.

In China, a university degree is generally considered a ticket to success. Last year, about 10.47 million students graduated from undergraduate programmes at public colleges and universities in China. With such a large pool of jobseekers, graduates with a good degree or experience stand a higher chance of finding work in a lacklustre job market.

The unemployment rate for young people aged 16-24 in urban areas stood at 14.55 per cent in the first half of this year, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The figure peaked at 17.3 per cent in July, a record high this year.