‘Sea turtles’ have become ‘seaweed’; Chinese graduates are now finding they must look beyond the traditional career ladder in order to find value in studying abroad. ‘Seaweed’, unflattering nickname for those returning from universities overseas highligh
‘Sea turtles’ have become ‘seaweed’; Chinese graduates are now finding they must look beyond the traditional career ladder in order to find value in studying abroad. ‘Seaweed’, unflattering nickname for those returning from universities overseas highlights that this path is no longer a sure route to success.
Photo: Internet
Lucy Liu returned to her hometown of Beijing in July hoping to settle down after finishing her postgraduate studies in documentary production at New York University. However, after being interviewed by the best-known studio in her field on the mainland, the 28-year-old began to have second thoughts.
“The pay would be 150,000 yuan for one documentary and at best I could finish one documentary a year. After spending so much on my studies, I couldn’t accept that pay,” said Liu, who spent around a million yuan (US$152,600) in tuition, rent and other living expenses while overseas.
Liu considers herself as one of the more fortunate ones – rather than settling for the lower-paid role she was offered, she opened her own studio to edit documentaries as a freelancer. She picked up two long-term jobs that would yield a steady income over the next 18 months and took small jobs for shorter videos at 15,000 yuan each.
Photo: SCMP
“I think I am one of the lucky ones, being able to land on my feet so quickly. Some of my friends are still struggling,” Liu said.
According to the Ministry of Education, last year 544,000 people went abroad to study and 432,500 returned after finishing their foreign education. Nearly 80 percent of students chose to return to China after completing their studies overseas. These graduates were once applauded as “hai gui”, a Chinese word for returned students that sounds like the word for “sea turtle”. However, with lucrative prospects dwindling, a new and far less flattering term entered the lexicon to describe returnees waiting for a job – “hai dai”, which sounds like “seaweed”.
Photo: ExcelDataPro
Compiled by the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG) and Zhiliao Zhaopin, a recruitment agency, the report found 44.8 percent of returned students earned less than 6,000 yuan per month as their starting salary. Among the higher earners, 35.7 percent made between 6,000 yuan and 10,000 yuan per month (US$900-US$15,000), 13.7 percent made 10,001-20,000 yuan and only 5.8 percent of returned students earned more than 20,000 yuan. These figures are just slightly higher than the average pay of new graduates on the mainland, which is 4,777 yuan for postgraduate students and 3,678 yuan for those with a bachelor or equivalent degree.
Mainland tuition fees are much lower, usually between 3,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan a year. While the fees charged by overseas universities vary, foreign institutions usually charge fees that run into the tens of thousands of US dollars to overseas students, whom they regard as a valuable source of income.
Photo: Internet
Li Qing, a researcher from CCG who was in charge of compiling the report, said graduate salaries varied from industry to industry. Those working in IT and finance were likely to get better pay while those in sales or government were on lower salaries. The surprise many expressed over their comparatively low salary offers highlights a large expectation gap among returned overseas students, who Li said were often overconfident and lacked knowledge about the best channels to find work, and what skills employers were looking for.
Photo: SCMP
“The biggest problem for overseas students are they can’t find a job that matches their major perfectly. They find themselves in a massive wave of returned students and they lack work experience to compete with those with some experience,” Li said. Although they face much higher tuition and living expenses than in China, Li urged students not to calculate the return on the investment in overseas education solely in financial terms.
Photo: University of Leicester
“You can’t weigh the pros and cons in direct financial terms because the overseas studies have other benefits such as enhanced personal development and a broader vision,” Li said.
“Overseas study cannot guarantee everything, but foreign-educated students have great potential and at some point their break will come.”
Li Qing Photo: SCMP
