Report shows jump in Chinese students going to the US

By Chen Weihua and Zhao Xinying (China Daily) 07:55, November 12, 2013

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A student gets advice about studying in the United States during the Beijing International Education Exhibition. More and more Chinese students have headed to the US for undergraduate and graduate study in recent years. (China Daily/A Jing)

Thanks to the rising family incomes, China continues to send more students to universitiesand colleges in the United States than any other nation.

During the 2012/13 academic year, Chinese student enrollments increased by a hefty 21.4percent annually to more than 235,000, according to the 2013 Open Doors Report onInternational Educational Exchange, released on Monday.

According to the report from the Institute of International Education, the number ofinternational students enrolled in US establishments of higher education in the academicyear rose 7.2 percent to more than 819,000.

Of all international students in the US, 28.7 percent were from China. The rise in thenumber of undergraduate students from China was especially dramatic, increasing by 26percent from the previous year.

Consultants said the number of Chinese students pursuing undergraduate education in theUS had increased rapidly mainly because of the growing Chinese economy, as the cost of afour-year education in the US for a Chinese child is typically more than 1 million yuan($163,000).

"As more families in China are becoming wealthy, an increasing number of Chinese parentscan afford the high tuition and living expenses for their children to study for four years inthe US," said Gao Yanding, founder of Yanding US-China Education, a consulting institutefor Chinese students in the US.

Gao also said the advanced teaching and management methods, as well as the well-established knowledge systems in the US universities are attracting more and moreChinese students and their parents.

"The parents believe that in US universities, their children can get things domesticuniversities cannot offer," he said.

The ages of the students is another factor parents have to take into account whenconsidering sending their children overseas, Gao said.

"Some Chinese parents don't want their children to study in the US too early, worryingthat young kids cannot take good care of themselves, but when the children grow to 18 or19 years old, it's time to let them go," he said.

A breakdown of the figures shows that 39.8 percent of Chinese students in the US wereundergraduates, while 43.9 percent were graduates. The remainder included 10.2 percentin optional practical training, a US policy for international students on F-1 visas to work inthe US for one year after graduation to get practical training to complement their field ofstudy.

The report shows that students from the top three countries of origin — China, India andSouth Korea — now account for 49 percent of the total number of international students inthe US.

But China was the only one of the three showing a rise in numbers, as enrollments fromIndia and South Korea declined.

The number of Chinese students in the US started to grow in the 1980s. In the 1988/89school year, the mainland beat Taiwan as the leading supplier and held that position until itwas replaced by Japan in 1994/95. In 1998/99, China again became the leading source offoreign students for three years until it was replaced by India.

But in 2009/10, China topped the list again and has held first place ever since.

Life experience

Chinese students in the US said that one of the biggest attractions of getting an educationthere is the opportunity to experience something different in life.

"The most attractive thing within the US education system is that it gives students a lot offreedom and many opportunities," said Sun Siyi, a senior student at Penn State Universitymajoring in energy business finance as well as broadcast journalism.

Sun said that choosing a double major in journalism after her sophomore year was a harddecision, because she only has two years left, and she hadn't taken any courses injournalism before.

"But the US universities allow students to arrange their own study schedule. Studentshave lots of opportunities to do a double or triple major, take a gap year, extend theirgraduation time or choose to be part-time students while working," she said.

Sun said the tuition fees at her university are about $32,000 and the living expenses areabout $20,000 each year. She said her parents are able to handle the costs of hereducation in the US.

"They are very supportive of my studies in the US," Sun said. "They only hope that I cangain more personal growth and broaden my horizons by learning from other cultureshere."

（Editor：DuMingming、Yao Chun）