After the pandemic, young Chinese again want to study abroad, just not so much in the US
WASHINGTON — In the Chinese city of Shanghai, two young women who want to pursue an education abroad have decided not to go to the United States, a destination that has been favored for decades and may be losing its luster.
For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior studying advertising, it was the cost. “For me, it doesn’t work if you have to spend two million (yuan) ($278,000) but when you come back you can’t find a job,” she said. Dong will go to Hong Kong this fall.
Cost was not an issue for Yvonne Wong, 24, who is now studying comparative literature and cultures in a master’s program at the University of Bristol in Britain. For her it was about safety.
“Families in Shanghai usually don’t want to send their daughters to a place where guns are not banned – that was the main reason,” Wong said. “Between the US and Britain, the UK is safer, and that is the biggest consideration for my parents.”
As interest in studying abroad surges again after the pandemic, there are signs that the decades-long streak that sent an estimated 3 million Chinese students to the U.S., including many of the country’s brightest students, could be trending downward , as geopolitical shifts begin to redefine the US. -Chinese relations.
The reduction in people-to-people exchanges could have a lasting impact on relations between the two countries.
“International education is a bridge,” said Fanta Aw, executive director of the NAFSA Association of International Educators, based in Washington. “A bridge for the long term, because the students who come today are the engineers of the future. They are the politicians of the future, they are the entrepreneurs of the future.”
“Not seeing that pipeline as strong means that we in the US have to pay attention, because China-US relations are very important.”
Aw said the decline is more noticeable among U.S. bachelor’s programs, which she attributes to a declining population in China due to low birth rates, acrimonious U.S.-China relations, more regional choices for Chinese families and the high cost of an American education.
But graduate programs have not been spared. Zheng Yi, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, has seen the number of Chinese applicants to one of the school’s engineering programs shrink to single digits, compared to 20 to 30 students before the pandemic.
He said the decline in interest could be partly due to China’s growing patriotism, which is pushing students to attend Chinese institutions instead.
Andrew Chen, CEO of Pittsburgh-based WholeRen Education, which has advised Chinese students in the U.S. for the past 14 years, said the downward trend will continue.
“This is not a periodic wave,” he said. “This is a new era.” The Chinese government has sidelined English education, hyped gun violence in the US and portrayed the US as a power in decline. As a result, Chinese families are hesitant to send their children to the U.S., Chen says.
Beijing has criticized the U.S. for its unfriendly policies toward some Chinese students, citing an executive order by former President Donald Trump to keep out Chinese students who attended schools with strong ties to the Chinese military.
China’s Foreign Ministry has also protested that a number of Chinese students have been unfairly interrogated and sent home upon arrival at US airports in recent months. Spokesman Mao Ning recently described the US actions as “selective, discriminatory and politically motivated.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said less than “one-tenth of 1%” of Chinese students have been detained or denied entry. Another State Department official said Chinese students selected for U.S.-funded exchange programs have been harassed by Chinese state agents. Half of the students have been forced to withdraw and those who participated in the programs have faced harassment after returning to China, the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.
The US-China Education Trust recognized the dire situation faced by Chinese students. “Students from China have been criticized in the US as potential spies, and in China as overly influenced by the West,” the organization said in a report following a survey of Chinese students in the US between 1991 and 2021.
Still, many young Chinese, especially those whose parents are educated abroad, are eager to study abroad. China-based education services company New Oriental said students hope degrees from renowned foreign universities will improve their career prospects in a tough labor market at home, where the unemployment rate for the 16 to 24 age group stood at almost 15% in December.
But their preferences have shifted from the US to Britain, according to EIC Education, a Chinese consultancy specializing in international education. Students appreciate the shorter study programs and the quality and affordability of British education, as well as the sense of security.
Wong, the Shanghai student now studying in Britain, said China’s handling of the pandemic has led to more young people going abroad. “After three years of strict controls during the pandemic, most people have realized that the outside world is different and are more willing to leave,” she said.
The State Department issued 86,080 F-1 student visas to Chinese students in the budget year ending in September, up nearly 40% from the year before. Still, the number remains below the pre-pandemic level of 105,775.
Under communist leadership, China did not open its doors to the US until the late 1970s, when the two countries established formal ties. Beijing, desperate to revive its economy using Western technology, wanted to send 5,000 students to American universities; President Jimmy Carter responded that he would take 100,000.
The number of Chinese students in the US, which increased after Beijing in 1981, allowed Chinese students to “self-finance” their studies abroad, rather than having to rely on government funding. Generous scholarships from American schools allowed tens of thousands of Chinese students to study here, but it wasn’t until 2009 that the number of Chinese students exceeded 100,000, driven by the growth of family wealth.
Over the next decade, the number of Chinese students in the US tripled, reaching a peak of 372,532 in the 2019-2020 academic year, just as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. The number dropped to 289,526 in 2022.
The Institute of International Education, which publishes annual reports on international students, has found that American schools are prioritizing students from India over China, especially for graduate programs. However, the survey also found that 36% of schools reported an increase in the number of new Chinese students in the fall of 2023.
In its latest report, the Council of Graduate Schools said U.S. universities have seen an increase in applications and enrollments from India and sub-Saharan Africa since fall 2020, while those from Chinese nationals have decreased.
“Increasing competition from Chinese higher education institutions and growing geopolitical tension between China and the United States may contribute to this trend,” the council report said.