Not a new concept. I believe that the poor job market in the early 90s spurred me on to law school, in fact.

Lots of unemployed kids here in China. The government knows this is a problem, understands that this is a very vocal group of people, and seems to be aware of the need for action.

In addition to "normal" policies designed to push economic growth, Beijing is working on ways to keep the kids busy:

The government has taken notice. It has offered seed money for recent graduates to start their own businesses, arranged government funded internships, and expanded educational loans for further study. But this will not be enough. Education officials have convened emergency meetings just last week with university leaders, telling them in no indirect terms that they are to expand enrollment immediately. The government is trying to temporarily expand the universities across the country so that they can a) absorb more high school students that might otherwise search for nonexistent work and b) keep more college graduates in universities for graduate study and thus off the job market.

The first rationale stems from the government's decision to enlarge the size of the high schools feeding into colleges but not the spots awaiting high school graduates in universities. As a result, college admissions remains a serious bottleneck in educational advancement. Not wanting potential drop-outs and college rejects to add pressure to the already dreary job market, the Education Bureau has pushed for a temporary "surge" of enrollment to soak up this group.

The second rationale results from the simple fact that with the unemployment rate rising and 20 million migrants out of work, the government can't afford to have recent college graduates crowding the labor market. As a result, the leadership is requiring national universities to dramatically expand their graduate school enrollment.

All in all, the government plans to expand college admissions by 50,000 across the country.

Seems like 50,000 in a country like China is quite a small number, but I suppose it is significant. From the flood of emails I've been getting these days from hopeful kids looking for an internship (at the law firm, not China Hearsay), the numbers are scary.

As with every other recession, we are going to see a significant number of folks (here and globally) that have gone back to school for that additional degree. Good for the grad schools, I guess. It also means that as the job market improves (in 2010?), there will be some very well-qualified, and now well educated, grads on the market. Tough competition.