‘Downfall of prodigy’: China’s youngest graduate student and PhD candidate at 16 still financially dependent on parents at 28, says ‘they owe me’

Zhang Xinyang, 28, a Chinese prodigy who won a university place at the age of 10 and went to graduate school at 13 now says “sitting around and doing nothing is the key to lifelong happiness”.

Once well-known as “China’s youngest university student” and “China’s youngest graduate student”, Zhang is still financially dependent on his parents.

In 2011, at the age of 16, he became a PhD student in Applied Mathematics at Beihang University, a top Chinese university in Beijing.

He sparked a national controversy by demanding his parents, from a fourth-tier city in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, buy him a Beijing apartment worth 2 million yuan (US$275,000).

Zhang told his parents if they didn’t buy him the apartment he would give up his master’s degree and reject his PhD offer.

His parents finally rented a Beijing apartment and lied to him that they had bought it, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported in 2011.

“Buying an apartment, finding a good job, and a Beijing hukou” – and so becoming officially registered as a city resident – was “success”, Zhang said in the report.

“You expect me to stay in Beijing more than anyone, and you should try hard for this,” he added, in comments directed at his parents.

He completed his doctorate in 2019 and then became a university lecturer in the northwestern autonomous region of Ningxia Hui, resigning two years later.

His view of success has apparently changed completely since he was a PhD student. He now does not have a full-time job, he only has a few thousand yuan in his bank account, he lives in a rented apartment in Shanghai doing freelance work and he is still financially dependent on his parents.

“They owe me this,” Zhang told Jiupai News in an interview published on September 20. “The apartment they never bought me should be worth over 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) now.”

Zhang’s changing life view and continuing dependence on his parents triggered heated online discussions.

“He is a good talent,” said one person on Weibo. “His parents were obsessed with cultivating a prodigy and eventually he compensated for his missing growing process in another way.”

Some lamented Zhang’s current situation describing it as a “downfall of prodigy”.

“He didn’t become an elder-gnawing adult all of a sudden,” said another commenter. “He had given up after trying to break free many times and failing”.

His undergraduate teacher, Zhang Yuehui, said Zhang still had time to “do big things” if he wanted to.