Seeing that story about the Peking University master's graduate delivering food, I think the real issue isn't about "wasting education" or personal freedom at all.

In 2023, there were 11.58 million graduates, but the total new employment target for the whole year was only 12 million. That's not even counting the 500,000 mid-level talents being "returned" to society from internet tech giants.

The current job market is like a pressure cooker. Mid-career professionals with 3-5 years of experience are competing for the same positions at lower salaries. HR budgets are fixed, so they naturally prioritize people who can hit the ground running. Recent graduates? Their resumes might not even get opened.

In this context, delivering food offers something rare: certainty. No interviews needed, no networking required. Compared to the despair of sending out two hundred resumes with no response, the immediate feedback of earning a few dollars per delivery is far more soothing to anxiety.

But here's the real crux of the matter: it shatters the implicit contract that "education equals returns."

When someone who's been filtered through twenty years of education discovers that the optimal solution turns out to be physical labor, what was the point of studying in the first place?