A small piece posted recently on the Inside Higher Ed website has large implications for schools across the US: “Some experts in China are questioning the (financial) value of the degrees earned abroad by Chinese students. There is no longer much of a wage premium for those who return. Further, the growing numbers of Chinese students going abroad means that it's no longer just the best and brightest. And some are questioning whether the Chinese students end up with enough knowledge of either the West or their home. Zong Qinghou, the second wealthiest man in China, who sent his only daughter to study abroad, recently said at a press conference that she ‘knows neither the current situation for Chinese enterprises nor the situation abroad’.”
I have worked with undergraduate students from China since they first were able to come to the US about 20 years ago. Over the past two decades I have been lucky enough to get to know some of the best students and people I have ever met. (I have profiled a number of them on this blog-search under Chinese students-- and will continue to do so in the coming months.) The students I continue to meet who enroll in top 30 schools now are as good academically as any in the past and are, in addition, far more sophisticated in their cultural and academic awareness. Their English too is far more fluent than most students in the US in terms of what they’ve read and how comfortable they feel contributing to groups of people in and out of class. It comes as no surprise to me that the recent PISA world rankings of students rate Shanghai as the place with the best students in the world.
This is what I love about working with students from China. But things get way more complicated quickly. As the numbers of these star students has risen, the competition for them to earn jobs in the US after graduation has risen dramatically. Many, if not most of them, do find slots with investment banks, consulting firms, Google, Tech firms etc. That has been true for a while. In addition, many obtain places at top graduate schools.
But in the last several years I have seen some students who were virtually perfect, and who would have been offered slots almost everywhere either struggle mightily before finding a job or, in some case, having to leave to go back home or some other country. This year, for example, a student who graduated at a top 25 school with a 4.0, great activities, exceptional English fluency, and several years at a top consulting firm, was dinged at Stanford’s MBA program. Just a few years ago this student would have been an easy admit. I see this happening with others trying to find opportunities on Wall Street etc.
Here’s where the numbers come in. Let’s be generous and say each of the top 30 schools enrolls 20 Chinese nationals a year: 600. (Over 4 years 2400) Most of these students will end up getting the slots at the top businesses and graduate schools. Many companies in the US don’t even hire foreign nationals, but the best students are so good they still do find places. Or at least most do. But what about the rest all those who are not the best of the best from China?
Currently there are over 235,000 students from China in the US. Not all of them are hoping to stay in the US and not all are graduating in one year. There are some data points, however, that indicate things are changing. Applications from students applying to graduate programs have slowed. In fact, the year before they actually dropped. China is now spending 1 trillion on education. They are building state of the art labs and facilities while in the US research dollars have been cut and visa restrictions make it very hard to keep all the qualified people who would want to stay and improve the economy in the US through innovation in STEM fields. In talking with scientists in the US I have heard stories of top
Chinese students turning down great jobs in order to return to China as the facilities and the long term investments look better than in the US. Graduate students from China were the first to come to the US to seek the best labs and teaching methods. The slowdown among this group should serve as a wake up call that things are changing, in part due to the economic growth in China and in part due to policies schools in the US have followed.
The thousands and thousands of undergraduate Chinese students graduating from colleges and universities, face tremendous odds in trying to find jobs in the US. Once again visa restrictions and regulations make it onerous and difficult to hire them unless they have skills far in excess to US citizens. It used to be the US was accused of being a brain drain for the best minds from other countries, but visa restrictions have slowed the flow of the best and brightest from staying on in the US. Now we train them and then let them return home to start companies and businesses that would have improved the US economy. We import students and then send them home to offshore jobs.)
In addition, many of the huge numbers of new Chinese students attending schools now in the US are far from stars academically. Virtually none of the tens of thousands of these students will be able to stay in the US. Of course there are lots of graduate schools letting in less than stellar Chinese students now, and there are a number of name schools offering programs aimed specifically at Chinese students, but again most of these will not lead to jobs here. Many will have to return home. In the cases of the super rich they can get jobs back home. And the stars will too. But many will find that a degree from a US school, especially not a highly ranked one, will not help them when they return home. Is the investment of S250,000 worth it? As the article states, even those among the super rich are rethinking the wisdom of sending their children abroad if they are not learning the skills they should and not making connections back home.
The thousands and thousands of non-star kids pouring in the last few years do not have a choice. They can’t stay. And not all of them are super rich. I hear again and again of families sacrificing all they have to send their child abroad. I don’t think there are demographics that have been gathered on the percentage of students who have millions in their bank accounts, but I do hear from students whose families make significant sacrifices. I think there is a mix of rich and not so rich. It saddens me when I hear and read from people who should know better that all these students from China are rich. Placing people into this category makes it easier to treat them in ways that some educators believe that the students have little to lose by coming to study for four years even if it means little academic improvement. If, however, the cachet of having a US degree has gone down back in China then there is more than just money to lose on the part of students and families -time and preparation and networking are just a few of the things that will get lost too. Sure, the Ivy name still carries weight, but there are tiny numbers of students from China at each of the top 20 compared to all the rest of the schools.
Some schools in the US depend on Chinese dollars. Full payers are harder and harder to come by in the US. But here are a few things schools might think about if they hope to keep the flow of students coming in the near and long term.
Encourage students to learn to do well not just academically but socially too. By this I mean too many students coming in from China have a large number of Chinese students as their classmates. At one school this year there are over 1000 new students from China. Many of these students will find safety in the bubble—they will speak Chines to their friends, and often not get involved with school activities that would promote growth in language, in cultural awareness, and in many of the soft skills that will make them attractive candidates to top graduate schools and companies. Many schools have offices specifically designed to help certain targeted groups of students. At a school with hundreds of Chinese students it would seem to be a ethical investment to make sure that these students get the opportunity to receive special training and special efforts at outreach so that they join the entire community. I don’t blame the students for not reaching out. It is far easier to hang out with people who belong to the same background. It takes effort on the part of the schools to promote immersion in a new culture.
Schools should also consider working with some of the new companies in China that now begin to teach these skills to Chinese students while there are still in China. Some of the programs I know are committed to making students aware of what they need to do before they set foot in the US. These companies are unlike some of the agencies in China which do far too much to “help’ the students get admitted to schools in the US. The issue of fraud is great, yet many schools turn a blind eye to the problem as they have neither the budget nor, in some cases, the interest in finding out accurate information. A good SAT and the ability to pay seems enough for some schools and this, in turn, promotes much altering of documents in China.
Schools in the US should be more ethical in their approach to recruiting students from China. They need to be forthright about placement rates after graduation, about support services and about the commitment they have first and foremost to the students and not the money the students bring. If schools continue the business as usual approach, and I fear that many will do just this, then like so many booms in economies (think Tulips in Holland and houses in the US) there will be come a big bust. And should this happen quickly to the Chinese student market, many schools in the US will be in terrible economic shape. I have been writing about this issue for almost two years and very few schools seem to have changed anything except perhaps to increase the numbers of students. Those in China I know and trust say a bust is coming. I guess if the schools in the US are unwilling to change, then the best I can say is that when it happens I will make sure I say it loud and clear: I told you so.
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Since posting this entry a few days ago, a piece came out in the Chronicle of Higher Education which addresses some of these same issues and makes some simlimilar critiques of schools in the US. One telling detail: some students at a university that enrolls thousands of Chinese students joke that what they learned by coming to the US was how to improve their Chinese language skills. Jokes are often serious business. I hope that the media will continue to cover this story. The more light shed on these issues, the more likely it is that schools will feel compelled to make changes that will benfit the students.
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