The magical thing is that this girl clearly got into a regular undergraduate program four years ago with a score exceeding the second-tier line by more than thirty points, but now she has to go to a vocational school to start over as a freshman!

My friends are sharing a screenshot of this admission notice with the caption: 'Bachelors to vocational, successfully on shore!' What's even more magical is the comment section, where amidst the sour doubts, there are actually several private messages: 'Sister, please share the strategy,' 'I will apply for this vocational program next year.'
The collective illusion of 12 million university students

Last month, while helping my sister organize her job application materials, I looked at the box filled with unopened civil service exam books and postgraduate notes, and suddenly understood her choice. This generation of university students lives in a huge lie - high school classrooms are plastered with 'Work hard for three years, enjoy happiness for a lifetime', and university teachers promise 'Obtaining a diploma means being a superior person.' Yet in 2024, 11.79 million fresh graduates will flood the job market, plus 440,000 returning overseas students, which means one in ten peers is a university student!

That day, we were sitting across from each other calculating:
In 1990, the college entrance examination acceptance rate was 2.4% (one in fifty).
In 2024, a liberal arts master's degree from a certain 211 university in Beijing is working as a stock clerk in a supermarket.
Among my sister's classmates, five have been preparing for civil service for three years and are still living off their parents.

'What happened to the promised golden key of academic credentials?' She laughed and tossed the civil service exam papers into the wastebasket, 'Even the street office in Zhengzhou requires a master's degree now.'


The survival code of 'bachelor's to vocational'

What truly shocked me was the employment report of Zhengzhou Railway Vocational College: a 96% real employment rate, 80% entering the railway system, and 40% obtaining formal positions. This is equivalent to processing ordinary undergraduates into 'railway bureau exempted products' in three years.


Path Time Cost Structure Probability Starting Salary Level Struggle Public Servants 3-5 years ≤5% 4000-6000 Ordinary Undergraduate Employment 0 years ≈0 5000 around Bachelor's to Vocational 3 years **≥40%** 6000-8000

Ironically, this year Zhengzhou Railway has 135 slots for the bachelor's to vocational program, yet the application threshold is 'full-time degree above the second tier', and vocational students are even unqualified to submit resumes!

The shocking conspiracy to deconstruct academic credentials

When I accompanied my sister to register at Zhengzhou Railway, I saw those railway bureau leaders in work uniforms coming for campus recruitment and suddenly understood: this is not a school at all; it is clearly a vocational filter for the railway system.

The significance of four years of undergraduate study is thoroughly deconstructed here:
Undergraduate mechanical engineering students and vocational students dismantle a locomotive in the same classroom.
The 'advantage' of undergraduates is only 20% more in theory classes.
But the teachers clearly say: 'The machine repair workshop only cares about who can change the brake pads in five minutes.'

The admissions office director who has worked in the railway bureau for thirty years put it more bluntly: 'We don't want 'university students' with high aspirations but low abilities; we need earnest people who can crawl under trains and work night shifts.'


The icebreaker of the educational maze

Looking at this policy again now, I realize the strategists' shrewdness: using the living 'degree inversion' to shatter the national obsession with academic credentials.

Neighbor Aunt Wang's words are particularly typical:

'I used to think my daughter attending vocational high school was embarrassing; now seeing her undergraduate classmates coming back to vocational school? Suddenly, I feel that the electrical engineering program at vocational schools is quite good...'

What’s even more shocking is that this year's Zhengzhou Railway score line has skyrocketed - the vocational admission line completely crushes the private undergraduate programs. The rumor that next year will pilot 'vocational to professional' (going to vocational high school after graduating from a junior college) has directly caused the consultation phone lines of automotive maintenance vocational schools to explode.

When the train wheels rolled over the false halo of a bachelor's degree, I suddenly saw the survival rules of this era clearly: rather than fighting for a devalued diploma among thousands, it is better to master a skill for survival in a practical training workshop. The person who came up with 'bachelor's to vocational' is indeed a genius - he is using 135 young people running in reverse to shatter the ideological steel stamp of the whole society.

The most solid steel stamp is never printed on a diploma with ink but is hammered into reality with an iron rice bowl.