Insightperspectives January 1, 2016 v3

generally encourages young people to study abroad,

but it supports less than five per cent of them

financially.

Chinese students' preferred destinations are the US,

Japan, Australia, and the UK, in that order. Anglophone

countries are, for obvious reasons, most students' first

choice,

France, which

received more than 25,000 students in 2012, and

Germany with close to 20,000 students managed to

squeeze in as number 8 and 9 on the top-ten list.

To the host countries, and particularly to universities

hit by cuts in public spending, Chinese students are a

most welcome source of income. In the academic year

2014-2015 they contributed $9.8 billion to the U.S.

economy,

and many universities around the world

would be in dire straits without the tuition fees paid by

Chinese and other international students.

Opting out of the Chinese education system?

An interesting recent trend in the outgoing flow of

Chinese students is that their age profile is changing.

For many years, the majority went abroad for their

graduate studies, but the balance is now shifting. More

are now leaving China as undergraduates and high

school students, and when Australia recently opened

its junior high schools (years 7 to 9) to foreign students,

a Chinese

2014, almost 30% of all Chinese students abroad were

While the exodus of graduate students to a large extent

simply reflects a desire for higher academic quality, the

dramatic growth in the number of young students can

be seen as a sign of deep dissatisfaction with the

existing Chinese education system. We should, of

course, remember that almost 98 per cent of all