Part 1 — From the Dream of the Gaokao to the Rise of the Fake Learners
The Dream of the Gaokao
Every June, more than ten million young Chinese students sit for the Gaokao—the National Higher Education Entrance Examination that decides who gets a chance at a university education. For decades, this test has been the symbol of fairness in China’s social hierarchy, a sacred covenant between state and citizen. The rule was simple: if you study hard and score high, you can rise, no matter where you were born.
For countless families, especially in small towns and rural provinces, the Gaokao represents more than an exam—it is destiny. Parents sacrifice everything, from their savings to their health, believing that their children’s success in this test will change the family’s future.
But in today’s China, that belief is beginning to crack.
Graduation, once a golden ticket, now feels like a dead end. Degrees from top universities no longer guarantee stable jobs. On the streets of Shanghai or Beijing, it’s not unusual to see graduates in yellow Meituan jackets or blue Ele.me uniforms delivering food. Some hold master’s degrees from prestigious institutions. Others work in factories, competing side-by-side with workers who never attended college.
For millions of families who went into debt to send their children to the cities, the dream of education as a path to prosperity has turned into a nightmare of unemployment. The social contract—study hard and succeed—appears broken.
How the Boom Began
Ironically, the roots of this crisis lie in an ambitious reform. In 1999, China launched a massive university expansion program aimed at modernizing its workforce and fueling economic growth. In just a few years, the number of universities exploded, and annual enrollment soared from 1.6 million in 1998 to more than 10 million today.
On paper, it was a triumph. In reality, the job market could not keep up. The economy, even as it boomed, had limits. It could not absorb the army of graduates flooding into it each year.
The result was credential inflation. A bachelor’s degree—once a rare treasure—lost its power. Two decades ago, it could guarantee a professional career. Now, it often leads to an unpaid internship or a delivery job.
This collapse in value has created an exhausting, meaningless race. Students push themselves to the brink just to stay afloat in a hyper-competitive environment where everyone must run faster simply to remain in place.
The Age of Nèijuǎn — Involution
In elite universities, the pursuit of knowledge has been replaced by the obsession with grades. Students compete for a 0.1-point difference in GPA as if their entire future depends on it. Libraries stay full until three in the morning—not from curiosity or passion, but fear.
This suffocating cycle is known as Nèijuǎn (involution): a relentless competition that yields no progress. It turns bright, creative minds into exhausted exam-taking machines.
When graduation day arrives, the celebration quickly fades. Across the country, the phrase “graduation season” has become synonymous with “unemployment season.”
Official statistics reveal the scale of the crisis. The youth unemployment rate for those aged 16 to 24 has hovered around record highs—at one point surpassing 21 percent. One in five young people is jobless. For a generation raised to believe effort equals reward, the emotional toll is enormous.
From Nèijuǎn to Tǎngpíng — Lying Flat
Disillusionment has given birth to a quiet rebellion. When effort no longer brings results, many young people have simply stopped trying.
They call it Tǎngpíng—“lying flat.” It means opting out of the race altogether: refusing to overwork, refusing to buy property, refusing even to marry or have children. It is not laziness, but protest. A rejection of a system that demands everything yet gives nothing back.
While one group of students collapses from the pressures of Nèijuǎn, another group never experiences it at all. These are the fake learners—a privileged minority whose academic path is paved not with achievement but with money and influence.
The Rise of the Fake Learners
In China, a parallel education universe has quietly flourished. For the children of the wealthy and well-connected, success in the Gaokao is optional. Their families can purchase access to elite private schools at home or send them to Western universities abroad.
These institutions—both domestic and international—serve a particular purpose: they sell legitimacy. As long as the tuition is paid in full, they offer the coveted degree and, more importantly, the social capital that comes with it.
Within these circles, education is no longer about learning; it’s about networking. At banquets and student clubs, conversations rarely revolve around ideas or research—they revolve around business connections. Students trade their parents’ phone numbers instead of academic insights. A single dinner can spark a marriage alliance or a billion-dollar partnership.
When these students graduate, they do so with real diplomas but fake knowledge. Yet, they are not unemployed.
Top positions in investment banks, state-owned enterprises, and government agencies are quietly reserved for them. Investigations have even uncovered “sons-and-daughters” hiring programs in major financial institutions—special recruitment tracks designed to favor the offspring of influential officials.
This isn’t random corruption; it’s a systematized mechanism. The same education system that once promised equality now accelerates inequality, entrenching privilege instead of dismantling it.
Two Realities, One Nation
China’s education model has split into two worlds running on parallel tracks.
The first is the Gaokao system—public, brutal, and theoretically fair—where millions battle for limited opportunities through sheer effort.
The second is the underground track—private, quiet, and powered by money—where admission, degrees, and even jobs can be purchased.
At elite private schools in Beijing and Shanghai, tuition can exceed the annual income of a working-class family. These institutions don’t teach calculus or coding so much as “polish.” Students learn horseback riding, golf, and harp—not to expand their minds, but to build portfolios attractive to Western universities.
The goal is presentation, not education. The outcome is privilege disguised as merit.
In 2019, the U.S. college-admissions scandal exposed just how far this could go: Chinese families paying millions of dollars to secure fake athletic profiles for their children’s entry into Yale and Stanford. The message was clear—why struggle to compete when you can simply buy a shortcut?
The Legal Shortcuts
Not every family can afford an Ivy League bribe, but the market has adapted. Across China, international “joint programs” have mushroomed inside top universities. These programs require far lower entrance scores but charge tuition several times higher. Students spend two years in China, two abroad—often at lesser-known partner institutions—and graduate with a foreign degree.
On paper, it’s legitimate. In practice, it’s a business model. It gives wealthy families whose children failed the Gaokao a way to purchase a foreign credential and social prestige.
The question is no longer whether a degree is real. It’s whether the knowledge behind it exists at all.
When Universities Become Corporations
This commercialization has seeped deep into the public system. Universities, once bastions of scholarship, increasingly behave like corporations obsessed with rankings, revenue, and brand image.
Professors are pressured to secure funding and publish papers, often at the expense of genuine teaching or research. Allegations of professors exploiting graduate students for unpaid labor or selling research positions have become alarmingly common.
A PhD slot, meant for the brightest mind, can instead go to whoever pays the highest “consultation fee” or has the right guānxì (connections).
This corruption creates an uneven battlefield. The hardworking student discovers that brilliance and diligence no longer guarantee anything when wealth and influence rewrite the rules.
Part 2 — Corruption Within the System and the Collapse of Faith
Corruption Within the System
The rot does not end in classrooms. It extends into the institutions that claim to uphold academic integrity.
In many Chinese universities, stories abound of professors exploiting their authority—forcing graduate students to assist on private projects without pay, or manipulating research data to secure funding. Even more disturbing are the allegations of grade-buying, where marks, scholarships, or even PhD seats are sold to the highest bidder.
Connections—guānxì—often matter more than competence. A student whose parents can “help” the department might mysteriously receive high scores or coveted positions. Meanwhile, genuinely talented students are left disillusioned, realizing that the playing field they believed in never existed at all.
Scholarships meant to support poor, hardworking students are sometimes handed to the privileged, who forge documents to appear financially needy. The same pattern repeats in the competition for Communist Party membership, a critical step toward government jobs. Party membership, often dubbed the “golden ticket” for career advancement, is supposed to reward merit and dedication. Instead, it frequently rewards proximity—those with connections to senior faculty or officials get priority, regardless of academic standing.
This corruption doesn’t just erode fairness—it corrodes faith.
The Job Market Mirage
Once students leave campus, the inequality only deepens.
For ordinary graduates, the job hunt is grueling. They send out hundreds of applications, endure countless interviews, and still end up settling for unstable, low-paying positions. But for the Nepo Babies—the sons and daughters of officials and business magnates—the path is smooth and pre-arranged.
State-owned enterprises, banks, and major corporations maintain “recommendation lists”—internal hiring pipelines filled with the relatives of influential figures. These positions are never advertised publicly.
A top student may toil through five rounds of interviews to secure a modest salary. Meanwhile, a well-connected peer walks straight into a management trainee role after a single dinner meeting attended by their parents.
This system doesn’t just rob opportunities from the deserving. It breeds incompetence. When those in power are there not because of ability, but because of bloodlines, mediocrity becomes institutionalized.
A Vicious Cycle of Privilege
Over time, this cycle feeds itself.
Incompetence hides behind privilege, and privilege protects incompetence.
The result is a fragile leadership class—people who inherit authority but lack the skills to wield it effectively.
When entire systems are run by such figures, corruption becomes not an exception, but the rule. Nepotism isn’t merely tolerated—it’s expected.
This is how a society begins to hollow out from within. The brightest minds, unable to find purpose, withdraw. The privileged, unfit to lead, dominate. Together, they create a quiet but devastating imbalance: a nation with an abundance of degrees but a scarcity of true talent.
When Effort Becomes Meaningless
For decades, China’s Gaokao system was the country’s ultimate equalizer—the promise that intelligence and hard work could overcome background. But when students realize their years of sacrifice weigh less than a single phone call made by someone else’s father, the belief in fairness dies.
When that faith collapses, society fractures.
China’s education system now runs on two tracks:
- The first—public, harsh, and merit-based in theory—is where millions compete to exhaustion.
- The second—private, quiet, and money-driven—bypasses merit altogether.
The children of privilege study at private international schools charging more than most families earn in a year. Instead of academic rigor, they receive “profile building.” Classes in golf, equestrianism, and classical instruments—experiences designed not to cultivate intellect, but to polish image.
Their families know exactly what they’re buying: not knowledge, but legitimacy.
The Price of Cynicism
The inequality has sparked a wave of silent rebellion. Young people no longer trust the system that promised them prosperity. Their disillusionment has evolved into a philosophy.
The first was Tǎngpíng—“lying flat.” A passive refusal to participate in the endless competition. “I won’t buy a house. I won’t marry. I won’t overwork. I will do the bare minimum to survive.” It was resistance through withdrawal.
But as economic realities worsened, a darker mindset emerged: Bǎilàn—“let it rot.” It is no longer about lying flat; it’s about giving up entirely. A conscious acceptance of failure. “If I can’t win, I won’t even try.”
Many graduates have stopped chasing careers. They take temporary jobs, live day to day, and no longer dream of a better future. It’s not laziness—it’s surrender born from despair.
A generation that should have been China’s brightest—its most educated, its most capable—is now opting for mediocrity because it believes the system left them no choice.
A National Waste
China has poured enormous resources into building universities, funding professors, and subsidizing education. Every year, it produces roughly ten million new graduates. This should have been a national triumph—a foundation for technological and scientific innovation.
Instead, that potential lies idle. Those same graduates deliver food, make coffee, or sit jobless in rented rooms. The result is an unprecedented misallocation of human capital—a massive, invisible economic drain.
Meanwhile, key positions in finance, technology, and administration are occupied by fake learners—those propelled by guānxì instead of merit. The system continues to function, but its inner gears are rusting.
The machine still runs, but the engine—the people—is faltering.
The Run Doctrine
For some, even Tǎngpíng or Bǎilàn is not enough. They choose a third path: Rùn xué—literally “the Run Doctrine.”
Derived from the English word “run,” it represents a new underground movement among China’s most talented youth. These individuals, often top performers and true believers in merit, now plan to leave the country entirely.
They study foreign languages in secret, seek transferable qualifications, and research immigration programs in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They are ready to abandon everything—family, culture, and homeland—in pursuit of a fair system where effort is rewarded.
This is more than migration; it is a vote of no confidence.
Tragically, while the real learners plan their escape, the Nepo Baby class has already left. Their assets, homes, and passports are long transferred abroad. Their loyalty lies not with the nation, but with their wealth.
Thus, two groups—one fleeing from despair, the other from greed—are abandoning the same ship for opposite reasons.
The Toxic Exchange
This phenomenon is not merely brain drain—it’s a toxic blood transfusion. The capable are leaving, the incompetent are staying in charge.
As a result, the national bloodstream is being poisoned. The body may survive for now, but it is running on bad blood.
The government’s initial reaction has been denial. State media criticize the youth for being “lazy” or “ungrateful,” calling on them to “eat bitterness” and endure hardship for the nation. But these words, coming from a system seen as corrupt, only fuel resentment.
When criticism fails, control follows.
Passport renewals become harder. Restrictions tighten on foreign study and overseas money transfers. But these measures trap the wrong people—the real learners who need financial clearance to apply for scholarships. The privileged, with dual citizenship and offshore accounts, remain untouched.
Band-Aid Policies
To address unemployment, the government launched campaigns encouraging graduates to “return to the countryside” and start businesses. They were told to “revitalize their hometowns” by opening cafés, farms, or startups.
But how can AI engineers or finance majors suddenly become mushroom farmers? These measures, though well-intentioned, do little to solve the root issue: a severe shortage of high-quality jobs that match the education level of millions.
It’s like treating an arterial wound with a small bandage.
The Middle-Income Trap
The consequences are grave. Economists warn that China risks being trapped in the middle-income trap—a stage where growth stalls because innovation and productivity can’t rise.
Innovation thrives on merit, not inheritance. When the smartest minds are delivering food and the most powerful positions are filled by fake learners, creativity suffocates.
The system may appear stable, but its vitality is draining away.
The Collapse of Faith
Beyond economics lies a deeper collapse: the death of social trust.
For decades, the Gaokao was China’s moral anchor, a promise that effort could overcome origin. When that promise is shattered by money and guānxì, cynicism takes its place.
The divide is not just between rich and poor—it’s between those who believe in fairness and those who know it no longer exists.
This polarization breeds instability. The wealthy elite continue accumulating and exporting assets, while the once-hopeful middle class slides into despair. The danger isn’t rebellion—it’s silence. The quiet withdrawal of millions who no longer care.
A nation can survive dissent, but not apathy.
A Crisis of the National Soul
China’s education crisis is no longer about exams or jobs—it’s about faith in the future. A system that devotes vast resources to nurturing its brightest minds only to watch them lie flat, let it rot, or run away, is a system devouring itself.
The question now is existential:
Can a nation sustain itself when its most loyal and capable citizens have lost belief in its fairness?
Or is it already counting down to the moment when an entire generation—trained to build the future—abandons the present altogether?
Thank you for reading.
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Disclaimer
This article is an independent analytical narrative based on publicly available reports, academic commentary, and observed socio-economic trends. It does not claim to represent the official position of any government, institution, or individual.
All cultural and political references, including those to Gaokao, Nèijuǎn, Tǎngpíng, Bǎilàn, and Rùn xué, are presented for educational and contextual purposes only.
The intent of this piece is to encourage informed discussion on social, educational, and economic dynamics — not to defame, discredit, or promote any political viewpoint.
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