Job hunt especially critical for graduates with student loans

Less than a quarter of poor students who will graduate this July in Guangdong province have landed a job so far, indicating a tough employment market, a senior education official said.

Of the 28,000 students who relied on bank loans to finish their college education, only about 6,000 have received job offers, said Li Xueming, deputy director of Guangdong province's education department.

He made the comment on Saturday on the sidelines of a job fair that was organized by his department and China Development Bank's Guangdong branch especially for students with financial difficulties.

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"Such students are facing greater challenges because they have to pay bank loan interest right after graduation," Li said. "So it's more urgent for them to find a job as soon as possible."

In order to help such students get a job, two job fairs were held in the province, in addition to online recruitment.

The first one, Saturday's job fair at Guangdong University of Technology, drew more than 200 enterprises. More than 10,000 students submitted job applications during the event.

The second fair was held on Sunday, with more than 100 companies offering 1,000 positions, according to local news media reports.

Wang Yongxiang, deputy manager of China Development Bank's Guangdong branch, told New Express, a local newspaper, that the bank has provided 2.65 billion yuan ($427 million) in loans to more than 430,000 students since 2006, when it started to use the loans to help students from poor families.

Most of them have paid back the loans on time, with a default rate of only 2 percent in 2013, he said.

Xiong Bingqi, an education expert at the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said that the tough employment situation might discourage poor students from seeking a college education.

He suggested that China learn from some countries in northern Europe, where students pay back their education loans based on the level of their salaries. They also can choose to pay back their loans over a long time span, usually from 10 to 15 years, he said.

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