Drawing on interviews with 20 young Myanmar citizens from Yangon and Mawlamyine, this paper contrasts the educational experiences and perceptions of Burman and ethnic minority youth to illustrate Myanmar's citizenship crisis, which fuels the grievances of ethnic minorities through their restricted citizenship vis-à-vis the Burman majority's appropriation of citizenship. It offers a unique comparative analysis of Burman and ethnic minority youth citizens' accounts to illustrate the 'Burman privilege' hypothesis and contributes to the limited evidence on Myanmar youth. I suggest that Burman-ness operated as a privileged identity in the education system to generate normative and institutional benefits for Burmans while constituting ethnic minority citizens as strangers estranged from their citizenship.