Real goals

Yang said another reason she quit the postgraduate entrance exam is that it would take three years for her to complete an academic master's degree.

On why fewer students applied for the postgraduate entrance exam last month, Yang said she thought it reflected a growing belief among them that academic degrees are not the only path to a secure future. "If employment is the final goal, we need to think about our choices from a different perspective," she said.

Yang said she learned from doing an internship the importance of work experience, as opposed to academic knowledge, when it came to employment. She now believes the master's degree she wanted to pursue was too academic for the job market.

While the time it takes to complete an academic master's degree stops some applicants, the financial cost of a professional master's is also a major consideration, said Chen from EOL.

The average annual tuition fee for an academic master's degree is 8,000 yuan ($1,126) and for a professional one 12,000 yuan, according to the Education Ministry. Academic master's degree students are provided with dormitories with an annual rent of around 1,500 yuan, but professional degree students in some colleges have to rent an apartment themselves.

"Aiming to cultivate students' practical skills, professional master's degrees usually cost more and cannot get national subsidies. The rising costs force students to calculate the true value of a master's degree," Chen said.