Chinese graduates at a Beijing job fair

RMB1000/month is about $130/month or ~$1700/year. That's not a lot of money for a college grad, even with the lower cost of living in China. My friend's studio apartmenet in Chengdu cost RMB1200/month to rent plus another ~RMB100 for utilities/management fee. I guess all these new college grads either live at home or need to find a lot of roommates.

Also, the 6 million number seems really high. That's ~0.5% of the population graduating from college each year. I wonder how that compares to the US?

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I found some statistics on the Department of Education website. For the 2008-2009 school year, they expect:

- 741,000 associate's degrees
- 1,585,000 bachelor's degrees
- 647,000 master's degrees
- 91,000 professional degrees
- 55,800 doctor's degrees

Counting all 5 categories, that's about 3 million college grads. If the 6 million number in China includes the same categories, then the US number is ~0.9%, which is about twice the rate in China. If the 6 million is only 4 year college grads, then the US rate is ~0.44%.