65% college graduates can afford apartment rent but feel stressed: survey

BEIJING - About 65 percent of fresh college graduates are able to pay rent on their own, but they are very sensitive to the room charge, said a survey released Friday by the China Youth Daily.

The online survey, covering 1,725 respondents from colleges and universities in municipalities of Beijing and Shanghai as well as Hubei, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Sichuan provinces, found that the graduating students are generally under pressure to rent an apartment.

Around 49 percent of them want to rent for less than 1,500 yuan ($218) a month, and about 46 percent are willing to pay 1,500 to 3,000 yuan a month, while only 3.9 percent can accept the monthly rate of more than 3,000 yuan, according to the survey.

About 8.34 million students graduated from Chinese universities in the summer of 2019, an increase of 140,000 from 2018, figures from the Ministry of Education show.

More than 80 percent of the graduating students surveyed said they rent apartments to solve housing problems, and more than 80 percent would like to share the rent.