Job seekers wearing face masks enter a job fair in east China's Shanghai, June 10, 2020. On-site career fairs have been gradually re-launched in Shanghai with COVID-19 prevention and control measures applied. In a recent series of job fairs held twice a week between June 10 and 24, job seekers including graduating college students can meet employers face to face after submitting their resumes online. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)

Shanghai is wooing graduates from top universities by granting them permanent household registration, which triggered heated discussion among Chinese netizens on Wednesday.

Under a pilot program, undergraduates from Shanghai's "world-class universities" including Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tongji University and East China Normal University, who meet the requirements for the application, will be granted household registration authorization, or hukou, according to the Shanghai authorities on Wednesday.

The topic of the new policy gained over 120 million views on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo as of press time. "Shanghai is starting to lure more talent," one netizen wrote.

"What can you do with a Shanghai household registration? Why not choose a city to live comfortably?" another netizen wrote.

Early in 2018, Shanghai established a pilot program to allow undergraduates from Peking University and Tsinghua University to receive permanent household registration in Shanghai in order to attract fresh talent to the city.

The hukou gives residents access to local preferential policies in education and social welfare services.

However, Shanghai is not the only choice for youngsters and fresh graduates to begin their career. 

For instance, the top five city choices for graduates of Peking University are Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou, according to Peking University's 2019 graduate employment report.

Zhao Meiqi, a junior student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told the Global Times on Wednesday that she feels happy to see the hukou policy for non-Shanghai-born graduates being loosened, because the threshold for settling in Shanghai was high and the points-based hukou registration system was complicated. 

But hukou won't be "a determining factor" for her to stay in the city, as it is still stressful to work and live there due to the high living costs.

Household registration in Shanghai can definitely help attract graduates, a PhD student in Fudan surnamed Ma told the Global Times on Wednesday, adding that she cares more about whether she can get a satisfying job. 

Shanghai has piloted a points-based hukou registration system for non-local graduates since 2004. Students need to pass a strict evaluation system to apply for household registration in Shanghai.