By Susan Tart and Wu Huanshu
China.org.cn Multimedia Team

Six million students are about to enter unemployment without ever having a job. The financial crisis has made it even more difficult for the soon-to-be graduates to find work. That's not counting the competition from last year's 1.5 million graduates who failed to find work and remain unemployed. With the potential job market doom, the Finance Ministry and Education Ministry have created a program to help give more of the graduates jobs while helping to develop the country at the same time.

The program promises to repay school fees and bank loans in exchange for three years of work in grassroots areas at the county level. Students sign a contract with the government and their school before graduation. This eases the trouble many students face when looking for a job on their own. But as with all good things, there is a catch that many students will not accept: the jobs they take must be in western and central China's remote and poor areas.

Shang Hong, a Labor and Human Resources major, is a case in point. She is one of the lucky students who has already received a job offer in Sichuan. However, she's still searching for a job in Beijing.

"If you work in a big city or a big company, you can make an adequate contribution to society. But if you go to poor areas, you can't apply all you learned to work," Shang said.

However, she knows that sending college graduates to provinces outside of Beijing is important.

"I went to Sichuan recently and found there is a big gap between the personnel systems and management levels when compared to Beijing," she said. "If a group of human resources specialists could go and work there, the level of Sichuan's personnel management could be raised significantly in a short time. So the development of western cities needs the participation of college students."

Her classmate, Dong Chao, is also contemplating the pros and cons of staying in Beijing. He has two job offers to choose from.

"The offer in Beijing meets my ideals of staying in Beijing. It can give me a hukou [registered permanent residence] and I can put into practice what I've learned. The second offer is in Hainan. It seems more challenging to me. I think it will help me realize my full potential," Dong said.

Professor Zhou Shi at the School of Labor and Human Resources of the People's University in Beijing, thinks more students should follow Dong's path and seek work outside the big cities.

"Graduates will learn more of China's reality if they work in poor areas, and they will know what kind of difficulties China faces. Doing grassroots work will also expand their work skills," Professor Zhou said.