Upsurge Of China Student Studing Abroad

To most ¡°Middle Class¡± families on the rise in China today, they are not very much concerned about whether their children can enter Tsinghua University or Beijing University any longer. They have shifted their objective towards overseas, which enables their children to be overseas students in their middle school age. According to the statistics, over the past three years, ¡°Young overseas Students from China ¡± have increased by 40% each year, with a total of 50,000 students studying abroad in a single year of 2000.

Based on an incomplete survey in Fujian Province, since the reform and opening-up policy was implemented, about 50,000 students from Quanzhou itself have gone abroad. Supposing one student spends 50,000 yuan (RMB), 2.5 Billion yuan have been spent altogether. In 1998, 434 million yuan was spent at college level for Chinese students studying in Canada and 330 million yuan at elementary and secondary level in New Zealand. At least 15,000 yuan will be spent on tuition and living expenses at secondary level in the U.S. and the U.K. If a student wants to study at college level, he/she will spend 100,000 yuan on tuition and 60,000  yuan on living expenses. So altogether 640,000 yuan will be spent in only four years.  Even in a small country like Cyprus, 300,000 yuan has to be spent for the degree of Hotel Management. According to the statistics by Australian Immigrant Department, as far as the number of international students is concerned, China has become the second biggest country, with the U.S. being the first. According to the statistics issued by the U.S. International Research Center, among the 510,000 international students, China ranks No.1 with 54,466 students. It was reported that tens of billions of education investment has been flown overseas. The U.K. Prime minister Blair once talked with some university presidents and stressed, ¡°You should pay close attention to foreign education markets, especially there is a great  potential market for international students in China.¡±

In some other countries, education is known as ¡°a never-declining industry ¡±. Bill Clinton, former U.S. President, once said in his speech on TV during his visit in Shanghai, ¡°Education will brings about more economic returns than any other industry¡­ ¡±. Jiang Zemin, President of PRC, once said at a conference on China¡¯s education, ¡°The rise and fall of our nation relies much on education.¡± The survey shows that the Chinese people with the tradition of honoring the teacher and revering teachings are willing to put 20-30% of their investment in their children¡¯s education. Hu Angang, a researcher  from China¡¯s Social Science Academy once talked about China¡¯s education with a correspondent from French News Agency by saying ¡°In 1997, the education expenses only accounted for 5.7% of the total for an average citizen. If the average education expenses can reach 10% for a family, the total payrolls will exceed 600 billion yuan .¡± In recent years, education institutions from Western countries like the U.K, the U.S., France, Australia and Canada have all held education exhibitions, consultations in China to attract more and more younger overseas students. The total payrolls of tuition paid by the students from the Chinese mainland can be several times of those paid by the students from those local countries respectively. For the universities and colleges in these countries, the number of international students not only has a great impact on the profits they will make and the amount of subsidization they can get and the popularity of a university in the country. According to the analysis by some experts, the market for studying abroad now has two new tendencies. First, the number of the students for MA and Ph.D is increasing. Most of the applicants are workers at their posts, who want to pursue further study for the sake of promotion. Second, the number of the students who want to study in language schools is on the rise. Many students intend to go abroad, but they do not have a good command of a foreign language, which might be a barrier for studying in a foreign country, so they decided to go abroad to improve their foreign languages. Recently, Britain has become a hot spot for studying abroad. The British higher education enjoys great popularity in the world. Among the 120 universities and colleges, there are many famous ones like Oxford University, so many students long to study in Britain. Besides, since the beginning of this year, the U.K has simplified the procedures for application so that more and more students might be able to be granted visa entrance. After that, the applicants for studying in Britain has kept increasing. In 2000, the applicants are expected to exceed 10,000, the number of which is slightly lower than that of the applicants for studying in the U.S. Britain has regarded China as one of its most important sources of students. At present, there are more than 300 Chinese students in Cambridge University, Oxford University, the Empire Engineering University and Manchester University respectively. The students are working hard with excellent academic achievements and have great potential for consumption. Universities in Britain are very interested in admitting Chinese students to increase their income. At the same time, the students from China serve as a window for the British people to know more about China.