Contemporary college students' self-employment is the internal demand of social development, and it is also an important way to improve the employment structure and relieve the pressure of social employment. As a group full of vigor and vitality, college students contain high enthusiasm and entrepreneurial potential. College students' self-employment has the following purposes and significance. 1, which is conducive to alleviating the employment pressure of college students. With the transformation of higher education from "elite education" to "mass education", the number of college graduates will increase year by year, and the number of college graduates will far exceed the number of vacant posts. Some experts pointed out that in recent years, the number of people who need employment in cities and towns will remain above 24 million every year, but under the existing economic structure, only about 1 1 10,000 jobs can be provided every year, and the annual employment gap is about 1.3 million. Therefore, in the long run, college students will face a more severe employment situation. In this situation, strengthening entrepreneurship education and improving the entrepreneurial ability of colleges and universities are conducive to solving the problem of difficult employment for college students. Entrepreneurial ability is a person's ability of self-survival and self-development in entrepreneurial practice. A college graduate with strong entrepreneurial ability will not only become the employment pressure of the society, but also increase the number of jobs and ease the employment pressure of the society through independent entrepreneurial activities. Because of this, governments all over the world regard encouraging college students to start their own businesses as the basic policy orientation to promote employment, and at the same time increase employment opportunities through public policies. 2. Help college students realize their dream of becoming rich. Since the reform and opening up, China has created a batch of rich people, including "profiteering" under the condition of economic shortage in the early stage of reform and opening up, "nouveau riche" in coastal real estate during the period of economic adjustment, "super trader" in the stock market in the mid-1990s, and rapidly rising private entrepreneurs. Focusing on the future, China's wealth will be shared by people who have two conditions: first, they must have wisdom, good education and standardized training, and have enough life experience; Second, they must have the passion and desire to create wealth and the ability to make good use of wisdom. At present, the employment concept of college students is changing quietly, and a big environment of encouraging, protecting and worshiping entrepreneurship is gradually taking shape. The employment and entrepreneurial activities originally undertaken by the government are gradually replaced by the market. The adjustment of industrial structure and the huge entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the government's policy of "entrepreneurship drives employment" have prompted college students to start businesses undercurrent. However, entrepreneurship is a complex and creative undertaking, which requires not only entrepreneurial spirit, entrepreneurial quality and entrepreneurial experience, but also dedication, long-term persistence and continuous innovation. According to the questionnaire survey, 7 1.8% of college students said that they would exercise for two or three years to prepare for starting a business after graduation, and 70.4% of them said that they would face up to the failures and setbacks in the process of starting a business. 3. It is conducive to promoting the rapid development of small and medium-sized enterprises. From the international experience, the same investment in small enterprises will create four times as many jobs as large enterprises. 99.5% of enterprises in a country belong to small enterprises, and 65%-80% of workers are employed in them. The United States has always attached great importance to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, calling them "the pillars of the American economy." 82% of the innovative products of American enterprises come from small and medium-sized enterprises. However, there are too few small businesses in China. According to the analysis of Professor Zhou Tianyong, a famous economist, by the end of June 2003, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises in urban and rural areas in China was 1 1.58 million, with less than 9 enterprises per thousand people, which was far from the level of 40-55 enterprises per thousand people in developed countries. Therefore, encouraging college students to start their own businesses is conducive to the rapid development of SMEs. 4. It is beneficial to cultivate college students' innovative spirit. Jiang Zemin said, "Innovation is the soul of a nation and an inexhaustible motive force for a country's prosperity." As the most dynamic group in China, young college students will eventually lose the inexhaustible motive force for development if they lose the impulse and desire to create. UNESCO 1999 published "2 1 World Declaration on the Prospect and Action of Higher Education in the Century", which stated that "entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial spirit must be the basic goals of higher education." Compared with western developed countries, entrepreneurship education in China is seriously lacking. According to the prediction of international education circles, in 2 1 century, more than half of middle school students and college students in the world will embark on the road of self-employment. Therefore, China must change the traditional educational concept of the whole society as soon as possible, deepen the reform of talent training mode in colleges and universities, and shift from employment education to innovation and entrepreneurship education. At present, China advocates and encourages college students to start their own businesses, and has issued a series of preferential policies, including industry and commerce, taxation, etc., but it is more important to guide college students to cultivate entrepreneurial spirit, turn employment pressure into entrepreneurial motivation, and cultivate more and more entrepreneurs from all walks of life.