Image if we had career councillors like Zhang Xuefeng who cut through the crap and gave honest advice about which universities and courses to target and which to avoid. Many of our universities are bordering on the non-functional. For 30 years Australia has trained Chinese students and many are now professors in China. If I was Chinese, I’d study in China. Forget Australia.
“Top Chinese education influencer Zhang Xuefeng, who had over 30 million online followers, died on March 24 at the age of 41 after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Zhang built a lucrative business advising families on university applications for the gaokao, China’s fiercely competitive college entrance examination.
His consultation services cost between 11,999 yuan and 17,999 yuan (US$1,700 and US$2,600).
In a speech, he once said he owned three companies: one could generate several hundred million yuan after a future stock market listing, while another was valued between 500 million and 800 million yuan (US$72 million and US$116 million).
Born into a poor rural family in Heilongjiang province, China’s northernmost province, Zhang grew up in a shabby rented home. At the family’s lowest point, their monthly income was just 600 yuan (US$87).
He later gained admission to Zhengzhou University and started out as a tutor after graduating.
Zhang rose to fame in 2016 with a video explaining how to choose majors for top universities, which drew more than one billion views.
Blending humour with sharp practical advice, Zhang broke down universities by location, the strengths and weaknesses of their programmes and graduate job prospects.
His style resonated with students and parents navigating the anxiety and complexity of China’s education system.
His services were promoted with the slogan, “A strong application strategy matters more than a high gaokao score.”
That message resonated in a system where students, after sitting the gaokao, must choose from more than 800 majors and over 3,000 institutions, creating over two million possible combinations.
Zhang also courted controversy with his outspoken criticism of liberal arts majors.
“If a child insists on studying journalism, I would rather knock them out and randomly pick any other major. Anything is better than journalism,” he once said.
He also argued that students from families without a business to inherit should avoid economics and management.
Even so, many parents embraced his hard-edged pragmatism, saying his views reflected a harsh reality where many degrees are losing value amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).
Beyond his business empire, Zhang also made sizeable charitable donations, supporting thousands of underprivileged students across the country.
His death triggered an outpouring of grief online. His studio said a memorial service would be held in Suzhou, a city west of Shanghai, on March 28.
In one live-stream, Zhang once revealed the epitaph he wanted on his tombstone: “Life is a fascinating game. I would gladly come back and do it all again in the next life.”
One education professional wrote in a post: “Zhang was a kind and selfless teacher. He treated life like a game, helping many ordinary and even poor ‘players’ overcome the information gap that blocks social mobility.”
One of his students said: “No one can become a second Zhang Xuefeng. I only hope society can offer the younger generation more paths forward and ease the pressure to survive, so that teachers like Zhang no longer have to carry such a burden with their lives.”