RESOURCES

An unprecedented outflow of Chinese international students.

China’s rapid social changes had an enormous global impact on international education. Both the massification of higher education and the swift emergence of a fast-expanding middle class have created a pool of hundreds of thousands of more affluent education consumers who are able to afford an overseas education, and fueled an unprecedented outflow of Chinese international students.

There are different reasons why so many Chinese students head overseas. For one, many Chinese view an international education as a means of expanding their academic horizons, gaining intercultural skills, and obtaining a top education. There’s a perception among many Chinese that Western universities, particularly U.S. institutions, produce more innovative graduates and critical thinkers than Chinese HEIs.1

Academic and financial barriers, meanwhile, are no longer the obstacles they once were, so that more Chinese students can more easily fulfill their academic ambitions to study abroad. In fact, large numbers of Chinese international students, many of whom come from China’s top-tier academic institutions, are exceptionally well prepared to enter the best universities in countries like the United States.

While language barriers can be a problem, Chinese students increasingly have the language skills to successfully study in English-speaking countries. There’s now an entire industry of schools that directly prepare students for an overseas education, many of them using English as the medium of instruction or bilingual curricula. According to current statistics, China has more than 800 international schools that teach either wholly or partially in English, many of them teaching foreign curricula, such as U.S. or U.K. curricula or the International Baccalaureate.

Global Outbound Numbers

The U.S. Remains the Top Destination Country Despite Slowing Growth

According to the Open Doors data of the International Institute of Education (IIE), China in the 2009/10 academic year overtook India to become the largest sending country of international students in the United States. Since then, the number of Chinese students has spiked to 369,548 in 2018/19, which means that close to 34 percent of all international students in the U.S. are now Chinese nationals.

Like most international students in the U.S., Chinese students are concentrated in New York and California, but they study on campuses all over the country—44 percent of the international students in Ohio, for instance, are Chinese, according to IIE. Forty percent of Chinese students are enrolled in undergraduate programs, 36 percent in graduate programs, and close to 5 percent in non-degree programs; 19 percent pursue Optional Practical Training. Computer science and mathematics, engineering, and business are the most popular majors among this student population.

Australia

Australia’s position as the third most popular international study destination worldwide is to a large extent owed to the influx of Chinese students. Between 2002 and 2018, the number of Chinese enrolled in Australian institutions spiked by 434 percent, from 47,931 to 255,896, according to the Australian Department of Education. These statistics, which include students in tertiary education, vocational education, language training, secondary education, and non-awards programs, indicate that 30 percent of international students in Australia are Chinese. When looking at tertiary education alone, that percentage is even higher—38 percent

The United Kingdom

The picture in the U.K. is similar to that in other Western English-speaking countries. China is by far the largest sending country of international students; numbers are on an upward trajectory and rose from 87,895 in 2013/14 to 106,530 in 2017/18, as per U.K. statistics. According to the Guardian, the “University of Manchester has the largest population of Chinese students in Europe. With about 5,000 Chinese students out of a total of just over 40,000, about one in eight students [is] Chinese.” Chinese students at the institution predominantly enroll in business and engineering programs with classes in these fields being particularly crowded with Chinese students. Aside from institutions like the University of Manchester, HEIs in London are also a top draw.

Canada

Canada is yet another country that witnessed a massive surge in student inflows from China over the past two decades. In 2001, China overtook South Korea as the largest sending country of international students in Canada. Since then, the number of Chinese students in the country has jumped from 22,000 to 143,000 in 2018, according to federal government statistics. Fully one quarter of international students in Canada now come from China, most of them clustered in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. By some accounts, “Chinese students make up nearly two-thirds of the international student body at the University of Toronto, more than one-third at the University of British Columbia and almost one-fourth at McGill University.”