Harvard speech sparks China debate on elite education access, privilege
Emotional remarks by a Chinese student who delivered this year's Harvard University commencement speech have sparked a debate in China about barriers to elite education.
The speech by Yurong 'Luanna' Jiang, the first Chinese woman chosen as Harvard's student commencement speaker, called for global unity amid US President Donald Trump's plan to 'aggressively' revoke Chinese student visas.
Internet users have since raised questions about a lack of access for many ordinary students who have struggled to be considered for prestigious universities, citing an uneven distribution of financial and educational resources.
While some praised her message of 'a shared humanity', which echoed Beijing's diplomatic vision of 'a community with a shared future for mankind', others criticised her 'privileged' background and questioned whether she truly represented the broader Chinese student population.
According to Harvard Magazine, Jiang, originally from Qingdao in eastern China, attended high school in the United Kingdom. She completed her undergraduate degree at Duke University before enrolling at the Harvard Kennedy School for a master's degree.
Internet users also questioned her volunteer experience in the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation – where her father reportedly worked as a director, and which played a role in securing a recommendation letter for her Harvard application in 2022.
Jiang's public scrutiny came a month following a national outcry in which a trainee doctor, who came from a privileged family, was exposed for submitting forged transcripts while applying to the prestigious Peking Union Medical College.
The programme, piloted in 2019 and unknown even to many doctors, had allowed bachelor's degree holders from the top 50 global universities to obtain a medical doctor's degree after only four more years of medical training, bypassing a much longer course of study for most doctors in China. The woman's degree has since been revoked.
Critics on Chinese social media expressed frustration that Jiang's academic path – shaped by international education and apparently supported by family resources – remained out of reach for lower- and middle-class families in China. Her success is being seen as emblematic of the widening gap in educational opportunities across social hierarchies, driven by the unequal distribution of wealth.
Some users on China's Weibo social media network were incensed. 'How could an ordinary family afford to attend high school in the UK?' asked one person.
'To put it bluntly, she has resources or money – things most people do not have,' wrote another. 'She also knows how to plan: transferring from a high school in Qingdao to the UK ... then applying to Harvard. Few of us from ordinary backgrounds are even aware of such a path. And as for the connections she may have relied on – if you had a father like hers, I believe you'd use it too, perhaps even more ruthlessly.'
Jiang's high school in the UK, Cardiff Sixth Form College in Wales, is a private boarding school with annual tuition for international boarders costing around £70,000 (US$94,500), according to the school's 2025–26 fee schedule.
Most Chinese high schools are public and charge only a few thousand yuan per semester. Most students must sit for the Gaokao – China's most important examination – which serves as the primary path to university admission and plays a critical role in shaping a student's professional future.
On Weibo, Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of Global Times, a nationalist paper affiliated with People's Daily, said it was understandable that many felt it was 'unfair' that Jiang may have access to resources unavailable to children from ordinary families – especially in the current climate of fierce competition for quality education and rising youth unemployment.
According to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, the country's youth unemployment rate in April was 15.8 per cent, amid a sluggish economy and growing geopolitical tensions. It had peaked at 21.3 per cent in June 2023.
Hu also cautioned against using Jiang's case to fuel discrimination against the broader community of Chinese students studying abroad, adding that not all of them were necessarily 'the rich'.
'China is an open society. We must have the mindset to engage in normal exchanges with world-renowned universities like Harvard, and the capacity to gain positive resources from them while guarding against negative influences,' Hu wrote, citing 'commendable' moves by leading Hong Kong universities to unconditionally accept all Harvard international students following Trump's ban.
'If Chinese students at Harvard choose to return to work in China after graduation, they should be encouraged and welcomed by society as a whole,' he added.
Several news outlets have also weighed in, saying that the discussion reflected broader concerns about education equality. The Elephant News, from state-owned Henan Television Station, said internet users were not denying Jiang's personal efforts but rather a broader concern over privileged educational access.
'Her success undoubtedly benefited from privileged resources. The public ... points to a broader concern that the privileged have consolidated resources to pave an express path for their children to elite universities, while exceptionally talented students from ordinary families struggle to overcome economic and informational barriers,' the news portal wrote.
Jiang has rejected the criticism in several lengthy posts on Weibo, claiming that she did not include the recommendation letter in her Harvard application due to a limit on the number of recommendations she could submit.
She also said that she was estranged from her father, who divorced her mother. She added that both her commencement speech at Harvard and her responses on Chinese social media reflected her efforts to 'strive for a Chinese voice' in the public sphere. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
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