Learning
Why more Chinese students are looking to Europe – and not the US or UK – for higher education
Worsening political relations, high costs and visa difficulties are seeing students abandon the United States and Britain Nations including the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland have seen increases in numbers of Chinese international students as US figures fall
Chinese university student Bian is hard at work learning German so she can travel to the European country after she graduates next year, with plans to do a language course and then a graduate degree.
As a student majoring in communication at a top Chinese university, she considered several options for further study, but decided to exclude the US and Britain. Despite having the best communication programmes, tuition fees and costs of living in those countries were beyond her means.
In contrast, Germany had various attractions, including a number of degree programmes with very low or even zero tuition, a stable social environment, and an interesting Western culture.
For the past three years, the number of Chinese students in the United States has fallen, with an increasing number of China’s best students no longer heading there. Instead, Europe is emerging as a popular destination among China’s sea of students heading offshore for further study.
Students have been travelling to Europe for generations, reflecting the idea that learning from the West could help China’s modernisation.
Earlier generations of Communist Party leaders, like Zhou Enlai, made short study trips to Japan, Germany, France and Britain in the 1920s; Deng Xiaoping also spent five years in France when he was a teenager.
Read more : SCMP
