Next year, the number of university graduates in China will reach an unprecedented 6.6 million. In Beijing and Shanghai, that number will be more than 410-thousand. What choice will young people in these cities make in their search for jobs under such competitive pressure? Liu Ting finds out.

Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou were once dream cities for many Chinese students -- in their eyes, they were full of opportunities and hope. Now the situation has changed -- the cities are still attractive, but the growing cost of living brings young people more pressure, and many of them have chosen to leave.

Song Liwen is one of them. The girl is finishing her third year of a master's degree in Beijing. As a master of materials science and engineering, she says, it took her just ten days to get a good offer from a state-owned enterprise in Shenyang in northeast China.

She said, "They have offered me a salary of 4000 yuan a month. In Beijing I wouldn't get much more than this, and I have to pay rent, for food and transport, altogether around three and half thousand yuan. It's definitely unrealistic to get my own flat. But in Shenyang, I will have about 2000 yuan left a month -- with that money I can at least support my family."

Many students share that view. Rising living costs have become the key factor for young people in big cities making the decision to leave or stay.

Meanwhile, leaving a major city causes not just stress. Career Guidance Centers at Universities are encouraging students to travel to the western regions of the country, and local governments are also attracting talent. For example, in late November the Xi'an municipal government offered more than two thousand job openings at Beijing and Tsinghua Universities.

Today, an increasing number of students from Chinese universities are choosing to work in provincial towns. If this continues, it will be an important impetus for economic development there. However, the result won't be known for a couple of years.