Postgraduate education is a kind of national education, which is generally carried out by ordinary universities with master's and doctoral degrees. After graduation, a graduate student can also be called a graduate student, which means a person with a graduate education. In China, graduate students are divided into master students and doctoral students. According to different degrees, it can be divided into academic graduate students and professional graduate students.

Academic graduate students generally refer to graduate students with academic degrees and established according to disciplines. They are oriented to academic research, emphasize theory and research, and mainly train university teachers and researchers in scientific research institutions. Professional graduate students, at the same level as degree graduate students, are applied senior professionals with a solid theoretical foundation and meet the actual needs of specific industries or occupations.

The unified enrollment of graduate students in ordinary colleges and universities includes full-time graduate students and part-time graduate students, and enrollment is conducted through the unified enrollment examination for master's and doctoral students nationwide or by recommending an exemption examination.

Before 20 17, on-the-job graduate students refer to on-the-job graduate students, who mainly passed the 10 entrance examination and enrolled students with equivalent academic qualifications. Traditional on-the-job graduate students have no postgraduate education but only a degree certificate.

From 20 17, the traditional on-the-job postgraduate students will be abolished and part-time postgraduate students will be established on the basis of full-time postgraduate education. At the end of 12, part-time graduate students and full-time graduate students took the national unified postgraduate entrance examination (national unified examination), delineated the same admission scores, implemented the same training graduation standards, and also obtained the general higher education diploma and degree certificate when they graduated.

Postgraduate training units in China mainly include three categories:

1, institutions of higher learning, such as Tsinghua, Peking University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Fudan University, etc.

2. Scientific research institutes, such as Metal Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China Academy of Engineering Physics, etc.

3. Iron and Steel Research Institute, Youyan Technology Group Co., Ltd., Institute of Telecommunications Science and Technology and other research institutes were transformed.