The China Boom on US Campuses

I am a Chinese who went to college (a small liberal arts college) in the States. This was 10 years ago, so I am not part of the current wave. I returned to China after graduation, and have recently begun interviewing applicants for my alma mater (because there are now so many applicants from China). I have been meeting currently enrolled students and applicants. Here are a few observations.

- there are indeed a lot more of them than before. at the time I was attending, each year we had maybe one student from China. Now they enroll 5-6 every year.

- more rich kids. when i was attending, the chinese students were all attending on a full scholarship from the school (private US education cost being what it was, and Chinese per capita GDP being what it was, few Chinese families could afford it without the scholarship) - these probably explains why they admitted only one student from China per year. but these days, the families don't seem to bat an eye paying the full $40K+/year.

- students are getting more mainstream. in the 90s, applying to colleges from China was like a hack. nobody knew much about anything. to even dream of such things was to be a little quirky. but these days there are all these SAT prep courses and consultants (two of my friends were in this business), and high schools have dedicated advisors on applying to US colleges. and this shows in the students admitted. I remember back then the Chinese students were more creative and original and adventurous (for coming to the US is a risky/adventurous thing to do. selection bias here, not unlike the adventurous 1st generation immigrants coming to the States); these days we get far more over-achieving resume-builders who were president of student clubs, and I think will go on to be investment bankers and have successful careers and I hope will donate back to the school generously one day. Instead of the odd kid who couldn't fit in, and said "f&!k it, I am getting the hell out of here" -- I was such a kid. (I realize this is probably an unfair judgment because I did not have as much interaction with the current students/applicants as I had with people whom I attended school with.)

I am quite ambivalent about the situation. I am happy that my school is getting some attention at this end of the world. but I don't know how I feel about the change in the kind of students we attract and will have as alumni.

In brief; a collection of anecdotes about the rapidly increasing number of PRC students at US universities at undergraduate level, with little in the way of structure.

Interesting points; The Chinese are going everywhere, including no name horribly expensive private colleges. They often experience culture shock and find the drinking and party culture not much fun. The native USAns' social circles are heavily race stratified, the Chinese often socialise very heavily among themselves, living in houses that are all Chinese for example.

- Britain and Australia got there first with the realisation that foreign students can be conned into going to third or fourth tier universities and paying handsomely for it. - There is enormous money in preparing and "preparing" students for going abroad. - Interesting snippets about some universities in the article; the University of Vermont was less than 1% international student until quite recently, Northwestern either needs money or wants to expand its brand, and Columbia like Stanford has an education programme.

This is the third time I've clicked on a link on the HN frontpage today and been sent to a NYT login page rather than something interesting. I know that "(nytimes.com)" is behind the link but I feel it behooves the submitter to point out that it is required: that open access should be able to be safely assumed.

I just went to a small alumni event from my university yesterday and spoke to some of the "development" people. One of the initiatives the university has had in the last 4-5 years has been increasing the undergrad enrollment by ~30% (very controversial with the alumni). Part of that strategy it to greatly increase foreign undergrad enrollment. The people from the university said that in the last couple of years the university endowment has down better than many of its "peer institutions", in large part due to the full tuition paying international students. In contrast to the NYT story, it seems that many of the international students I've heard about are actually being paid for by their governments, although a lot are just from (relatively) rich families as well.

This is a mirror image of the situation in Vietnam, not surprisingly. Loads of families who have saved too much money and are willing to send their ill-prepared children to no-name American universities (or community colleges). Lots of stories of students adjusting to student life abroad "too well", dropping out and spending their parents' tuition money on partying. In either case, ROI can easily be measured in decades.

OTOH, I see China's education system rapidly catching up, in sciences although maybe not in liberal arts.

For those with stamina, single page link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/education/07china-t.html?_...

This collection of snippets about Chinese undergraduates in the US doesn't really have much of a hook.

Now we just need to sell our house surplus to the PRC students after they graduate. Two birds, one stone.

They're going to work and steal our jobs no matter what. They might as well do it on US soil and pay US taxes.