Surge in Number of Chinese Students at American Universities

Photo source: BBC America

In the past two years, the number of Chinese students studying at American colleges has increased dramatically. While India held the top spot as supplier of American international students for the past decade or so, now China has catapulted far beyond them in numbers of students sent.

At major universities in Ohio, Chinese make up almost half of all international students studying there.

Another twist: Most of those new Chinese students are undergraduates. This introduces an entirely new demographic dynamic on a campus.

Why the surge? Some of the reasons:

• More Chinese students than ever before are applying to colleges in their home country. However, the supply of spots available at Chinese universities has not kept pace with the demand.

• The U.S. government recently relaxed the restrictions on the number of student visas granted to Chinese citizens.

• China’s one-child policy allows Chinese parents to focus their resources on a single child’s education. That plus the growth of the Chinese middle class makes an overseas education option more viable.

• American universities are increasingly motivated to create a diverse culture on their campuses.

But the driving factor in the huge increase in Chinese students? Money. Most Chinese parents do not apply for financial aid, but pay their child’s full tuition. For an American university system struggling to make ends meet, there's a huge financial incentive in recruiting and enrolling more Chinese undergraduates.

(On a related note...International students contributed over $21.2 billion to the U.S. economy in 2010.)

The exponential increase in Chinese undergraduate enrollment at U.S. colleges carries huge missiological implications, particularly for those of us who work in a university environment. I’ll be fascinated to see where this trend goes.

Most statistics taken from Open Doors 2011, a collection of data gathered by the Institute of International Education and release to the public in November 2011.

To read an interesting MSNBC article about cottage industries (and corruption) cropping up around these trends, click here.

To watch a 5-minute video produced by BBC America on this subject last year, click here.