With the job market tightening and college enrolment expanding, over a third of young Chinese say their college study experience was not as rewarding as they had expected, according to a newspaper survey.

The survey, published in yesterday's China Youth Daily, showed that 34.7 per cent of the 8,777 respondents said they regretted their university experience as what they had learnt was not worth the time and money invested.

"Sometimes I feel I have wasted the money my parents earned by the sweat of their brows by entering university. I can't make a living from what I learnt, let alone repay my parents," said a university graduate surnamed Zhao, quoted by the paper.

After graduating from Beijing Agricultural University, Zhao took a job as a security guard with a monthly salary of 800 yuan (US$100).

About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job with a bachelor's degree, the survey said.

Nearly 4.13 million university students graduated in 2006, compared with 1.15 million in 2001. But salaries for university graduates have been declining. Six years ago, university graduates could easily find a job with a monthly salary of 2,500-3,000 yuan (US$312-375). But now graduates are willing to work for just hundreds of yuan a month, the survey said.

About 67 per cent of those polled said university study had become less rewarding after enrolment expanded. But another 44.7 per cent thought it would be harder to find a job without university experience.

(China Daily 08/15/2006 page3)