Young Chinese who rushed to study law or business in universities in the past few years are finding that it does not quite pay off。

　　While their counterparts in other countries may be in demand, law and business graduates in China are struggling to land a job。

　　Last year, survey after survey of fresh graduates in China surprised educationists when the findings showed that unemployment rate was the highest among those who took "prestigious" courses。

　　These courses – law, business administration, computer science and international trade – showed unemployment rates that were up to 7 percentage points higher than the average。

　　Experts say the students, and their parents, were attracted by the prestige surrounding these degrees。

　　And schools, sensing an opportunity to cash in, set up new departments to attract students even though they did not have the instructors or facilities to run decent courses。

　　The rising jobless numbers among such graduates are coming to light now. Stiffer competition triggered by the growing graduate population is part of the problem。

　　Unemployment among fresh graduates has been rising for many years. Critics blame the government for vastly expanding university intake without preparing the schools or the economy sufficiently for it。

　　But experts say the latest problem is specific to certain courses。

　　There are more than 500 different undergraduate courses being offered in China. But studies show unemployed graduates are highly concentrated in just a handful of programmes, according to Wang Boqing, the author of one of the survey reports。

　　"These programmes are the ones that are severely imbalanced," he said。

　　All too often, parents in China favour courses that give them "face" or make them feel superior to friends and neighbors, according to observers。

　　近几年去大学攻读法律或商科的中国年轻人发现，这些专业回报率并不高。这些专业在外国很走俏，但中国的法律和商科毕业生却在找工作上举步维艰。

　　去年，针对中国应届毕业生进行的调查令教育者吃惊。调查发现，那些学习过“体面”课程的人群的失业率是最高的。法律、商业管理、计算机科学和国际贸易这些课程所显示的失业率比平均水平高出7个百分点。

　　专家称，学生和家长被环绕这些学位的体面所吸引。而学校感觉到赚钱机会，就设立新系吸引学生，即使它们没有讲师或设施来讲授像样的课程。这些毕业生的失业上升现象已浮出水面。毕业生日益增多导致竞争激烈，这是造成这一问题的原因之一。

　　应届毕业生失业人数已增长多年。批评人士指责政府大学招生规模庞大，却没在学校或经济上做好足够准备。不过有专家称，这一最新问题仅限于某些课程。在中国，正在讲授的不同的本科课程有500多门。但研究显示，失业毕业生仅仅集中在少数课程上。一份调查报告的作者王伯庆(音)说：“这些都是严重失衡的课程。”观察人士称，中国父母通常喜欢那些能给他们“面子”或让他们感觉自己比朋友和邻居优越的课程。(董岳译）