This isn’t something you hear everyday, from a Tianya forum post: “American college graduates’ salaries are extremely high, but Chinese graduates’ salaries are equal to those of migrant laborers?” (美国的大学生收入优势大，但中国的大学生等同于农民工?) It’s a reference to this OECD report that lists lifetime earnings differences vs. non-college graduates in rich countries, by gender. It’s interesting that no one in the comments section seems to have picked up on the persistent gender inequalities present in the results.

For some context: there’s been a lot of discourse regarding unemployment among college graduates in China, and general low level of salaries for even those graduating from top universities. Non-controlled TonySurveyTM results indicate that in Wuhan, a newly minted Wuhan U. (considered a top-10 school in the Mainland) grad can expect between Rmb 1.2-2.5k (US$ 170-380) per month. In Shanghai, it’s about twice that. A very good job (in Shanghai) would net someone Rmb 6-8k (US ~$900) per month – if they can find a job. In the past year there has been a lot of concern with graduate unemployment. The figures for average graduates are sort of comparable to experienced migrants: the average migrant can make between Rmb 800-1.5k per month; the amount goes up if they work in a larger city / possess trade skills (the max I’ve heard is about Rmb 2.5-3k, which is unusual).

Despite the massive wage differential between U.S. graduates and the rest of the world; there’s been some concern in the U.S. that graduate salaries are falling on average, and wage income inequality is generally increasing; certainly magnified by the awful employment situation throughout the last year. This Businessweek article doesn’t account for demographic changes – are boomers as a group more likely to have college degrees, and their retirement increases the percentage of the working population without a degree? That seems unlikely, but boomers would have much more experience – comparing a 25 year old with someone who has a Bachelor’s degree and 25 years of experience doesn’t tell you that much about long-term wage trends. It probably also depends on what people are studying – interesting comparison here between fields.

In general, Chinese education is rife with plagiarism, rote memorization and absenteeism. This is certainly less pronounced at the major universities, where exchange students and guest researchers are often posted, but is not representative of the higher education system as a whole. Even though China graduates ~600,000 engineers every year, McKinsey Global Institute (as of 2003) indicates that most of them are unemployable by Western standards, due to quality of education and language barriers. That’s certainly not a reason to ignore the low rate of graduation in these fields in the U.S. (would be nice to do a grad degree in CS or statistics, but first one must pay for the dumb thing), but it is a bit of perspective. Education in China isn’t yet all that developed by international standards, and won’t be for a while. This does beg the question as to why massive infrastructure investment is going into Burj Dubai mockups and bullet trains and not improving the quality of education. The answer I imagine is simply that improving education quality is very, very difficult.

Here are some of the replies to the original post:

Because when you all were at university you were busy flirting with girls, playing computer games. A university diploma doesn’t mean anything, the critical element is whether or not you can add any value.

因为你们在大学里忙着泡MM玩网游,大学文凭不能代表什么,关键是你能创造多少价值.

American graduates’ salaries are high because America demands that many college graduates, besides, America’s basic level level education isn’t really much at all. If you haven’t gone to a university, one with a good brand name, your lifestyle level will comparatively not be very good.

Chinese graduates cannot command value because China’s economy is currently in the developing stage, and originally doesn’t demand that many college graduates.

美国大学生收入高，是因为美国需要那么多大学生，并且美国的基础教育水平不怎么样，如果不是以大学升学、考名牌大学为目标的高中生，文化水平是相对比较低的；

中国大学生不值钱，是因为中国现阶段的经济发展水平，本来就不需要那么多大学生，大力发展高等教育本来就是出于推迟就业、缓解就业矛盾、迎合农村人希望 跳农门的心理赚钱的，从资源角度看，根本就是浪费教育资源，把本该提高高等教育水平的投入花在了高等教育普及化上；给本来应该去做农民工的人一张大学文 凭，最后收入还不如农民工，因为浪费学习专业技能的时间和机会，在大学里混文凭。

Because China doesn’t need university graduates, it needs migrant laborers! China’s GDP relies on cheap labor to manufacture; it’s the world’s factory ~ it doesn’t rely on technology to manufacture; on this point there’s no possible way to compare it to the U.S. or Japan.

因为中国不需要大学生，需要民工！中国的GDP都是靠低廉的劳动力创造的，世界工厂嘛~而不是靠科技创造的；这点跟日本美国根本没法比…

It shouldn’t be so! Because the costs of education can’t be compared; there are lots of households that are collectively contributing to help students make it to graduation. They should be able to make back their money.

It’s not so! It should also be an effective investment. Think of politics, class struggle and this sort of thing – the more one studies the more stupid they speak. Of course, our constitution is based upon class struggle, so if there’s no study of that then that’s no good either.

不应该，因为教育成本不能同日而语，一个家庭要供养一个学生直至大学毕业所付出的是很多的。应该得到适当的回报。

不是吧！那也要是有效投入才行。像政治啊，阶级斗争这些东西越学得多可能越傻的说。当然，我们的宪法是以阶级斗争为基础的，不学还不行。