Analysis on the Comments on the College Entrance Expasion

Since China implemented the college expansion policy in 1999, there has been an increasingly number of discussions and studies of its pros and cons. The official purpose of this policy is to stimulate domestic demand and relieve the employment pressure. (China Education 1999) As the number of college enrollment students has been increased from 1,800,000 to 9,120,000 in recent 14 years (China Education and Research Network 2013), it leads to heated discussions on education equity, the quality of education, labor market necessity and other expansion issues. There is a discussion on the ZhiHu BBS asked the question whether the college expansion is good or not. (ZhiHu 2013) There are a great number of responses and comments related to this question. Selected opinions will be analyzed for the strength or weakness of their persuasiveness.

One of the comments was posted by a sophomore student Liang Qiaotou:

College expansion devalues the college students. GaoKao goes on every year and the number of applicants of GaoKao increases every year. Colleges also increasingly expand every year. However, the employment declines every year and employees’ quality declines every year. Students used to make a beautiful picture of the college, but now if they had a second chance, they would never choose to go to the college. (Liang 2015)

It is irrelevant between college expansion and the value of college students. The increasing number of colleges does not mean the decrease of college students’ value. Colleges provide students an opportunity to further study and students’ value is achieved by their individuals. What is more, “devalue” (Liang 2015) is an ambiguous word and in order to make it reasonable, it should be explained in more details like in which aspect or to what extent. Logic between GaoKao and college expansion is also irrelevant. College expansion is a policy to increase the number of college students, but the increasing number of GaoKao applicants is due to the increasing number of students. They are two totally different things. It may be persuasive for readers who do not get into universities because of their lower marks.

It is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to say that the decline of the employment is because of the college expansion. The low rate of the employment is a long-lasting issue and it is a bias to make the college expansion as the scapegoat of the employment issue. Individual reason may be the larger part of reasons why there are more and more unemployed graduates. In addition, there is no evidence to prove the decrease of the employees’ quality. Then, it is the fallacy of the generalization. Liang made the conclusion through his own college experience, but not all students regret going to the college because of its expansion. Different people have different ideas of the college life. It is bias on the college life. There is also a possibility that students enjoy their college life because college expansion makes them have a chance to go to the college, but those readers who have the same experience as Liang make his statement persuasive to them.

There is a different comment posted by user Wang Fei:

      I am from a poor family in Guizhou Province. I am the only college student in my family. College expansion increases the probability of going to college for students like me. It makes my dream come true. Not like my brothers or sisters, students at their time even didn’t have opportunities to go to colleges from our remote county. They just left school at 15. (Wang 2013)

Wang used his own experience to express the idea that college expansion provides much more opportunities for students, especially those who are from poor families. It is an Argumentum ad misericordiam fallacy. It takes advantage of people’s compassion towards students from poor families to make his comment persuasive. In particular, students who have the same experience are easily to be persuaded. Higher education expansion provides much more opportunities for students to go to the college, but it still needs their own efforts to get into there. There is also a possibility that although students have the opportunity to go to the college, they lose the chance because of low marks.

In addition, there is another fallacy of the generalization. People do not go to college not only because of the shortage of college enrollment. Especially, maybe at the early period of the time, people would rather go to work than go to the college. Wang used the example of his brothers and sisters to generalize the situation of students of that generation. It is the goal of the college expansion policy to increase the probability of going to college to improve the quality of students. Although it is expressed in this statement, it needs facts or data to prove it instead of using the specific case to generalize the situation.

There is another comment stated in a political aspect posted by user WhiteHeart Li:

     College expansion accelerates the disappearance of student class in a political sense. Students as a political class, it is a natural opposition against the government. Before the college expansion, there was a small amount of college students who were greatly admired by society, so they still had a huge political power. College expansion makes the number of students larger and larger and also makes this class a mixture of the good and the bad. Students gradually lose their political influence and they are even described as taunts by the mass media. The loss of their political aggression protects the stability of the government. (Li 2014)

This statement is quite innovative and it is easy to attract readers’ attention. Because of the incomprehension, people are easily to be persuaded by a comment from a quite new aspect. Li presented college students as a political term. College students had made a contribution in specific movements through the history of China. In fact, with the change of the age, the function of college students is also changing during the time not because of the college expansion. It is two irrelevant aspects of higher education. Li (2014) then stated that students as a party is a natural opposition against the government. It is a bias toward students. It is his personal opinion that college students are aggressive and easy to be instigated. Students who have been educated may be more willing to think twice before acting.

In addition, “admired by society” does not mean they “had a huge political power”. (Li 2014) It needs more evidence to explain that to which extent college students were admired by society and why it is related to the politics. Li (2014) also indicates the idea that college expansion reduces the quality of college students, which makes them less influential in society. First, the quality of college students is due to the content of the higher education and their different individuals. Second, there is no evidence to prove the loss of college students’ political influence. College students were criticized by the media because of their personal behavior. It is a fallacy of generalization to use the specific cases to label the whole generation of college students. The government using the college expansion to keep society stable is also a bias toward the government. Li thought that the government cannot bear the free speech from college students. It may be persuasive for readers who share the same feelings of the government.