In Shanghai, a destination of choice for decades may be losing its luster after two young women seeking to study abroad decided not to go to the United States.
For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior advertising major, that’s the cost. “It doesn’t work for me when you have to spend 2 million [yuan] [$278,000] But I couldn’t find a job when I came back,” she said. Dong will go to Hong Kong this fall.
Cost is not a concern for 24-year-old Yvonne Wong, who is now studying for a master’s degree in comparative literature and culture at the University of Bristol in England. For her, the issue is safety.
“Families in Shanghai usually don’t want to send their daughters to a place where guns are not allowed — that’s the main reason,” Huang said. “Between the US and the UK, the UK is safer and that was the biggest consideration for my parents.”
Interest in studying abroad has picked up in the aftermath of the pandemic, with signs that some 3 million Chinese students, including many of China’s brightest students, have traveled to the U.S. over the decades to study as geopolitical changes have redefined Sino-U.S. relations. But the trend is likely to be downward. relation.
“International education is a bridge”
Reducing 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 Washington-based NAFSA Association of International Educators. “It’s a long-term bridge because the students who come here today are the engineers of the future. They are the politicians of the future.” ; they are future business entrepreneurs.
“Not seeing the strength of this pipeline means that we in the United States have to pay attention because the U.S.-China relationship is very important.”
The decline is more pronounced among U.S. undergraduate programs, Hu said, which she attributes to China’s shrinking population due to low birth rates, tensions between China and the U.S., more regional choices for Chinese families and the high cost of U.S. education.
But graduate programs are not immune. Zheng Yi, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, found that the number of Chinese applicants for an engineering program at the school has dropped to single digits, compared with only 20 to 30 students before the epidemic.
He said part of the reason for the waning interest may be that rising patriotism in China is prompting students to attend Chinese institutions instead.
Andrew Chen, CEO of Pittsburgh-based WholeRen Education, said the downward trend will continue. The company has been providing consulting services to Chinese students in the United States for the past 14 years.
“This is not a cyclical wave,” he said, “this is a new era.” Chen said the Chinese government’s marginalization of English education, hyping up U.S. gun violence and portraying the United States as a declining power have led to Chinese families’ reluctance to send their children to America hesitated.
China’s criticism of the United States
Beijing has criticized the United States for unfriendly policies toward some Chinese students, citing an executive order by former President Donald Trump that banned Chinese students from schools with close ties to the Chinese military.
China’s Foreign Ministry has also protested in recent months that some Chinese students have been unfairly interrogated upon arrival at U.S. airports and deported back home. Spokesman Mao Ning recently described U.S. actions as “selective, discriminatory and politically motivated.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said less than “1 in 10” Chinese students were detained or denied admission.
Another State Department official said Chinese students selected for U.S.-funded exchange programs were harassed by Chinese state agents. The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said half of the students were forced to drop out and those who participated in the program faced harassment when they returned home.
The U.S.-China Educational Trust recognizes the difficulties faced by Chinese students. “Chinese students have been criticized in the United States as potential spies and in China for being too influenced by the West,” the organization said in a report after surveying Chinese students in the United States from 1991 to 2021.
Still, many young Chinese, especially those whose parents were educated abroad, still aspire to study abroad. Chinese education services provider New Oriental said students hope degrees from prestigious foreign universities will improve their career prospects in a tough domestic job market, with the unemployment rate for those aged 16 to 24 approaching 15% in December.
But their preference has shifted from the United States to the United Kingdom, according to Kai Tak Education, a Chinese consultancy specializing in international education. Students like the shorter study courses, the quality and affordability of a British education, and the sense of security.
Huang, a Shanghai student currently studying in the UK, said China’s handling of the epidemic has prompted more young people to go abroad. “After three years of strict control during the epidemic, most people have realized that the outside world is different and they are more willing to leave,” she said.
In the budget year that ended in September, the State Department issued 86,080 F-1 student visas to Chinese students, an increase of nearly 40% from the previous year. Still, the number is down from pre-pandemic levels of 105,775.
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