疫情+政治因素美国不再是中国留学生首选之地

疫情+政治因素美国不再是中国留学生首选之地

文章来源: UDN

8/31/2021

为8月19日上海浦东机场航空公司柜台前，准备赴美的乘客大排长龙景象。取材自中国日报网站

美国驻北京大使馆日前公布，今年5月以来，已向中国留学生签发8.5万张学生签证，与2019年相当。上海解放日报旗下新媒体《上观新闻》指出，虽然中国赴美留学人数未如外界预期出现急剧下滑，但调查显示，在疫情和政治双重影响下，美国已不再是中国留学生的出国首选。

报导称，中国留学生减少，对美国来说也代表一笔为数不小的损失。中国是美国国际学生主要来源。2019-2020学年，有37.2万中国学生在美国大学学习，占美国国际学生总数的35%，几乎是第二大来源国印度学生的两倍。

据美国国际教育工作者协会（NAFSA）统计，2019至2020学年，国际学生对美国经济的贡献为387亿美元，年比减少18亿元，降幅4.4%，为近20年来美国留学经济数据首次衰退。

上观新闻指出，这也给美国的大学带来了直接的财政压力。俄亥俄韦斯利大学国际招生主任克罗斯比（Kristin Crosby）就表示，几乎所有机构都看到来自中国学生的申请急剧下降，”这对他们的收入造成了巨大打击”。

今年，拜登上台后开始放宽国际学生的入境限制。美国国务院4月26日宣布，持有F/M签证的中国留学生从今年秋季学期起，不再受”赴美禁令”影响，可直接从中国飞往美国，无须在第三国中转14天。

上观新闻表示，虽然赴美留学签证数已基本恢复，但考虑到去年疫情影响，获签者其实包括去年入学但仍滞留中国的学生，以及今年入学的新生。这些学生集中出国，才会造成近期浦东机场大排长龙的景象。

美国通用申请（Common Application）的数据就显示，尽管2020-2021年全球申请赴美留学的人数增加了10%，但来自中国的申请却减少18%。

上观新闻报导，一项调查显示，2015年倾向去美国留学的中国留学生占比为51%，但此一数字今年已降至32%。相反的，倾向前往英国留学者，则从2015年的32%，增至2021年的44%。报导称，这个数字变化的背后原因与政治、国际局势密切相关。

包括：川普早前签署的”10043号公告”迄今尚取消，美国依旧限制中国某些理工院校的学生赴美留学；美国境内反亚裔种族主义情绪高涨，2020年美国便发生多起袭击亚裔事件，华人聚集区也不时传出袭击事件。此外，美国对新冠疫情的防控不当，也让留学生们却步。

上观新闻认为，中国的学生或许将从更大格局来看待出国留学及个人职业发展，不会再像过去一样”扎堆”留学美国，而会将眼光投向更广阔的世界。

Source

Epidemic + political factors, the U.S. is no longer the first choice for Chinese students

8/31/2021

*The picture shows a long queue of passengers preparing to go to the United States in front of the airline counter at Shanghai Pudong Airport*

The US embassy in Beijing recently announced that since May this year has Chinese students have issued 85,000 student visas, and 2019 quiet. Shanghai Jiefang Daily’s new media “Shangguan News” pointed out that although the number of Chinese students studying in the United States has not fallen sharply as expected, the survey shows that under the dual influence of the epidemic and politics, the United States is no longer the first choice for Chinese students to go abroad.

According to the report, the decline in Chinese students studying abroad also represents a considerable loss for the United States. China is the main source of American international students. In the 2019-2020 academic year, 372,000 Chinese students are studying in American universities, accounting for 35% of the total number of international students in the United States, and almost twice the number of students from India, the second-largest source country.

According to the National Association of International Education Workers (NAFSA), the contribution of international students to the U.S. economy from 2019 to 2020 is US$38.7 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 1.8 billion yuan, or 4.4%, which is the first decline in economic data from studying abroad in the US in the past 20 years…

Shangguan News pointed out that this has also brought direct financial pressure on American universities. Kristin Crosby, director of international admissions at Ohio Wesleyan University, said that almost all institutions have seen a sharp drop in applications from Chinese students, “which has dealt a huge blow to their income.”

This year, after Biden came to power, he began to relax the entry restrictions for international students. The U.S. State Department announced on April 26 that Chinese students holding F/M visas will no longer be affected by the “entry to the U.S. ban” starting this fall semester and can fly directly from China to the U.S. without having to transit for 14 days in a third country.

Shangguan News stated that although the number of visas to study in the United States has basically recovered, considering the impact of the epidemic last year, the recipients actually include students who enrolled last year but are still in China, as well as freshmen, enrolled this year. These students will go abroad in a concentrated manner, which will cause the recent long queues at Pudong Airport.

Data from the Common Application in the United States shows that although the number of global applicants to study in the United States has increased by 10% from 2020 to 2021, applications from China have decreased by 18%.

According to Shangguan News, a survey showed that the proportion of Chinese students who tend to study in the United States in 2015 was 51%, but this number has dropped to 32% this year. Conversely, those who tend to study in the UK increased from 32% in 2015 to 44% in 2021. According to the report, the reasons behind this number change are closely related to the political and international situation.

Including The “Announcement No. 10043” signed by Trump earlier has been canceled, and the United States still restricts students from certain polytechnic institutions in China from studying in the United States; anti-Asian racism in the United States is high, and there will be multiple attacks in the United States in 2020. As for the Asian incidents, there have been attacks from time to time in the Chinese gathering areas. In addition, the United States’ improper prevention and control of the new crown epidemic have also discouraged international students.

Shangguan News believes that Chinese students may look at studying abroad and personal career development from a larger perspective. They will no longer “get together” to study in the United States as they did in the past, but will focus on the wider world.

Source

U.S. universities face another school year of too few Chinese students

BY GRADY MCGREGOR

8/20/2021

In the coming weeks, tens of millions of students are set to descend on college campuses across the United States in what many universities had hoped would kick-start the first normal and mostly in-person academic year since the onset of the pandemic. The rise of the Delta variant may be complicating those plans, but there is another factor threatening a return to college as usual: U.S. universities may be losing their luster in China, the U.S.’s largest source of international students.

Chinese student applications for the coming academic year shrank 18% compared with last year’s cycle, according to data from application platform CommonApp. The decline appears especially pronounced given that U.S. colleges got a 9% boost in applications from international students in this cycle compared with the previous one. School administrators and experts attribute the overall boost in applications, at least in part, to U.S. President Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump last November and the perception among that the new administration would be more receptive to visa applications from foreign students and employment visas for U.S.-educated students after they graduate.

But dwindling interest from Chinese students still threatens a major and steady source of revenue for U.S. universities.

In the 2019–2020 academic year, 372,000 Chinese undergraduate and graduate students studied at U.S. universities, accounting for 35% of the total international student population. India, the second-largest source of U.S. international students, sent 193,000 students to American universities, accounting for 18% of the nation’s total international student population.

The U.S. Department of Commerce estimated that in 2019 international students contributed $44 billion to the U.S. economy. That year, the living fees and tuition expenses of Chinese students accounted for $15.9 billion—a figure nearly equivalent to the amount of money the U.S. government spent on Operation Warp Speed in 2020 to help develop COVID-19 vaccines.

The waning interest from Chinese students is a result of U.S. visa restrictions on Chinese students, an increase in anti-Asian racism in the U.S. amid the pandemic, and rising tensions between the U.S. and China. But a slight drop in applications may not prove calamitous, and even a global pandemic and rising geopolitical pressures may not be enough to fully stem the tide of Chinese students opting to study in the U.S.

A closing door

When college campuses shut down and classes went remote in March 2020, Chinese and other international students faced a difficult choice: Make an expensive—and potentially dangerous—journey home or find a place to stay on campus.

The majority of Hanson’s friends left campus, but the then-sophomore at Wesleyan University in Connecticut opted to stay because the cost to go home to Beijing was prohibitively expensive. Hanson, who declined to share his last name because of concerns about his visa status, was suddenly alone in a house that usually sleeps 20 people, isolated from most of his college friends and family in China.

After schoolwork, “I was just trying to keep myself entertained. That was my major job,” he said, explaining he spent time reading or talking with friends on the phone.

But staying on campus early on benefited Hanson when Wesleyan resumed classes in the fall of 2020. His Chinese friends who went home mostly stayed in China because the U.S. required them to fly to a third country and quarantine for two weeks before entering the U.S. At the time, the U.S. government deemed China a high-risk country due to concerns about COVID-19, even though China had largely eradicated the spread of the virus months before. The U.S. lifted the ban on direct flights for Chinese students returning to campus in April 2021. New Chinese international students were almost entirely prohibited from entering, as U.S. consulates around the world largely suspended visa services during those months. Between April and September 2020, the U.S. issued 808 new visas to Chinese students compared to 90,410 the year before, according to the U.S. State Department.

“[Chinese] students and families had to slowly gain awareness that they were not getting visas because no visas were being issued…and that they would have to do the year online,” says Tomer Rothschild, cofounder of Elite Scholars of China, an education consulting firm helping Chinese students get into U.S. prep schools and universities. “Last year was just pandemonium because there were no good answers.”

Rothschild says that parents were less motivated to pay full tuition for online classes from China. Tuition at top private schools like Harvard and Columbia range from $49,000 to $61,000, respectively. And even if students are not paying room and board while away from campus, many colleges still charge thousands of dollars in mandatory additional fees to help maintain their campuses. For Chinese international students taking classes online, “I’m not sure that’s really attractive,” he said, explaining that some of his former students dropped out.

For the upcoming academic year, U.S. consulates in China and around the world have prioritized approving student visas to ensure that international students can return to college campuses. With more U.S. consulates reopened this year, from May to June the U.S. approved 143,000 student visas, including 57,000 for Chinese students.

Rising tensions

But even as consulates process visas, politics may be getting in the way of a full rebound.

In May 2020, former U.S. President Donald Trump banned Chinese graduate students in fields like science and technology with ties to the Chinese military from studying at U.S. universities. American officials allege that such students may pose a national security threat and could steal state secrets from the U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has continued to impose Trump’s order. Over 1,000 Chinese students have had their visas revoked since Trump implemented the ban. Hundreds of the students have banded together and plan to hire a lawyer to challenge the ban in court, but the Biden administration has defended the order as necessary to protect national security interests.

The ban targets only a small number of students, but it sends a message that the U.S. is no longer a welcoming place for Chinese students, says Rothschild.

Yusen Zhai, a counselor in Alabama who has focused on the mental health of Chinese students in the U.S. during the pandemic, says that the visa restrictions, a rise in hate crimes against Asians in the U.S., and early media coverage of COVID-19 that associated China with the virus took a toll on the well-being of Chinese students. “This climate led to public fear and alienation of international Chinese students,” he says.

The deteriorating circumstances for Chinese students, combined with a rising tide of nationalism in China, have made Chinese parents less motivated to send students abroad.

Hanson says that much of his family in China now views the U.S. as an increasingly dangerous and unwelcoming place, and he is not sure if they would still be supportive of his choice to study in the U.S. if he was applying to colleges today.

“It would definitely be hard for me to go…if I were to make the decision to [leave China] and study in the U.S. now,” says Hanson.

Staying power

Top U.S. universities like Harvard and Stanford may not be losing Chinese applicants. Neither school returned Fortune’s request for comment.

“[The top schools] exert a tremendous gravitational pull on Chinese students,” says Rothschild.

But other colleges are struggling.

“The schools that don’t have a national reputation, or an international reputation, those schools have had a much harder time recruiting students,” Rothschild said.

Michigan State University (MSU) was one school that capitalized on booming interest in Chinese students in recent decades. From 2006 to 2016, MSU increased its Chinese international student population by a factor of seven, from 602 total undergraduate and graduate students in 2006 to 4,599 in 2016. But from 2016 to 2019, the number of Chinese international students enrolling at MSU fell by roughly 7% each year.

“The last couple of years have been difficult in terms [of Chinese student enrollment numbers] falling off,” says Patty Croom, director of international admissions at MSU, a state school with a total enrollment of 50,000. She attributed declining interest from Chinese students to worsening U.S.-China relations and increased interest among Chinese students to study in places like Canada and the U.K.

Croom says that while Chinese enrollment was already declining, it plummeted during the pandemic. From fall 2019 to fall 2020, Chinese student enrollment at MSU dropped by 25%, from 3,226 students to 2,432. MSU has not made enrollment figures public yet for its upcoming academic year, but Croom is not expecting the numbers of Chinese students to return to pre-COVID-19 levels. “The pandemic exacerbated the decline [of Chinese students at MSU],” says Croom.

Schools with smaller populations of Chinese international students are also in a tight spot.

“One of the emerging themes for this year was that pretty much across the board, most institutions saw a steep decline in applications from students from China,” says Kristin Crosby, director of international admissions at Ohio Wesleyan University. “It was a huge hit to their revenues,” she said. Ohio Wesleyan has not publicly released statistics about its incoming class, but Crosby said that applications are down from Chinese international students in comparison to previous years.

Croom says that the loss of Chinese students to MSU will certainly have negative “financial impacts” given that Chinese students pay higher out-of-state tuition to the university than students from Michigan. But she said it would not be “debilitating” because MSU is a large university that recruits students from all over the world. She said MSU has continued to step up efforts to recruit in China through social media platforms like WeChat and hiring an MSU representative in the country within the past few years. Academically, MSU is also adapting to ensure its students from China eventually come back to Michigan. Last year, MSU partnered with universities in China to allow students to take classes at Chinese universities for MSU course credit, she says.

Given the overall boost in international applications, universities may also be able to make up the deficit in declining Chinese student populations through focusing recruitment efforts elsewhere.

Croom said MSU’s reliance on Chinese international students has been “unbalanced” compared to international students from elsewhere, and the university has expanded efforts to recruit from places outside China. “Part of our strategic planning is to make sure that we are diversifying our populations more effectively,” she says. MSU’s enrollment numbers show that international student numbers, as a whole, did not fall as quickly amid the pandemic as the Chinese international student population. From fall 2019 to fall 2020, overall international student enrollment at MSU declined 19.8%, less than the 25% drop from Chinese students.

Still, U.S. universities seeking students from China have a large pool to draw from. The features of higher education in China that funnel students to the U.S. have not changed.

Chinese students’ ability to get into top Chinese institutions like Peking University or Tsinghua University in Beijing is determined almost entirely by how well they perform on a single college entrance exam called the gaokao. Chinese students who live outside major cities also are at a structural disadvantage to earn a spot at prestigious schools because major universities are often located in urban centers that prioritize accepting students who live nearby. Tsinghua and Peking universities each have a roughly 1% acceptance rate, but that figure drops to about 0.1% for applicants who lack a Beijing hukou, or house registered in Beijing city limits. Even with the challenges of studying abroad, students left out of China’s elite schools are still incentivized to consider the U.S. for their university studies, Rothschild said.

“The [gaokao and hukou system] account for a big part of why students are going to study abroad,” says Rothschild. “These factors are not going to change dramatically.”

Source

US still rejects Chinese STEM student visa applicants

By ZHANG YUNBI

7/06/2021

A view of the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology on July 8, 2020 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [Photo/Agencies]

Sources told China Daily that Washington has kept playing a hypocritical, double-faced role in China-US education exchanges this year, as it encouraged US universities to enroll more Chinese students while failing visa applications from over 500 Chinese students who had obtained offers to pursue postgraduate study in STEM majors.

About a quarter of these students have won US scholarships, and the majority submitted visa applications after the new US administration took office, sources familiar with the matter told China Daily, on the condition of anonymity.

The affected Chinese students were applying for doctorates or master’s degrees in the US, and most focused on science and technology majors, including electronic engineering, computers, mechanics, chemistry, material science and biomedicine, according to the sources.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is JiLiKongTiao.jpg

The US universities they plan to attend include Harvard, Yale, the University of California Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins.

However, the US embassies and consulates in China rejected their visa applications, saying they did not comply with Section 212 (f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and Presidential Proclamation 10043.

The proclamation accuses the Chinese government of using its overseas students to acquire sensitive US technologies and intellectual property, and it suspends entry of those Chinese students and researchers who Washington defines as being connected to China’s “Military-Civil Fusion Strategy”.

Some of these students have co-signed a letter urging the US government to tackle this discrimination and suppression issue targeting Chinese students.

The US government’s suppressing Chinese students and scholars also has prompted concerns in US education and academic circles.

On June 10, the American Council on Education and other US higher education organizations requested a briefing on the implications of Proclamation 10043 from the State Department, specifically from representatives of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Office of Consular Affairs, and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.

According to data provided by US academic institutions, visa frustrations of this kind will affect about 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese STEM students pursuing postgraduate study or Chinese visiting scholars in STEM majors every year.

As early as June 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued an alert on studying in the US in response to the Donald Trump administration’s suppression of Chinese students.

After Trump signed Presidential Proclamation 10043 on May 29 last year, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian responded by saying, “this action is stark political persecution and racial discrimination” and a grave violation of the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese students and researchers in the US.

Such a move goes against the trend of the times in international talent exchange and “will gravely impact the normal cultural and personnel exchange between the two countries”, Zhao said, adding that Washington should immediately retract its wrong decision, and respect and protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese students in the US.

However, since Joe Biden took office as the new US president, there still have been cases taking place affecting Chinese scholars and foreign students, the anonymous sources told China Daily.

The citizens involved were faced with situations such as visa application rejection; prolonged body search, interrogation and even repatriation at the US airports; harassment during their stay in the US and unjustified detention or interrogation by US national security authorities, sources said.

Given the fact that US embassies and consulates in China resumed operations for student visa applications in early May, Washington has attempted to look like it is responding to the urges of US universities to attract a large number of Chinese students and ensure tuition income, thus showing a gesture of cooperating with China in education, the sources noted.

“But, on the other side, it continues the Trump administration’s erroneous policy of suppressing Chinese postgraduate students and scholars in STEM majors and seriously violates the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens studying abroad,” the sources added.

The sources urged Chinese students and scholars planning travel to the US to “examine the recent series of outrageous moves by the US and get a clearer picture about the crux of the US government’s policy, which is to step up suppression on China-US people-to-people exchanges”.

These Chinese students and scholars are expected to “make an objective and rational assessment of, and an estimation from, visiting and studying in the United States so as to avoid unnecessary losses”, the sources added.

Source: http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202107/06/WS60e3ccbba310efa1bd660020.html

报告：近九成中国民众倾向理工科职业

6/19/2021

3M公司发表报告显示，疫情暴发一年多以来，中国民众对科学的信任程度显著上升，近九成中国民众更倾向于追求STEM（科学、技术、工程、数学）职业。

据21世纪经济报道，3M公司发表科学现状指数年度调查报告显示，与全球69%的数据相比，绝大部分（91%）的中国民众认为，年轻人在疫情后对科学和科学相关议题的参与度比以往任何时候都高，预示着将迎来一个充满希望的后疫情时代。年轻人对科学与日俱增的热情表明，科学在人们心目中的形象将持续提升。

调查显示，97%的民众认为科学为他们带来了未来的希望，而相应的全球比例为89%；96%的中国民众认为不重视科学将对社会产生负面影响，全球比例是85%。

疫情暴发一年多以来，中国民众对科学的信任程度显著上升，创下了3M科学现状指数调查开展四年以来的新高。如今，中国有97%的人信任科学，在受访的17个国家中拥有最高的科学信任度。

对科学的高度信任影响着人们的行为，并在很大程度上促使日常生活重回正轨。大多数中国民众在公共场合会佩戴口罩（86%）、勤洗手（81%），并尽可能避免参加大规模集会（75%）。若有人质疑科学，大部分中国民众（中国85%对全球75%）都会捍卫科学，而在中国Z世代的成年人中，这一比例更是高达90%。

3M大中华区研发运营总经理熊海锟说：“2021年度的3M科学现状指数调查报告表明，中国民众对科学的兴趣度比大多数的国家都高，并且仍在不断增长。人们认为科学对社会的未来大有裨益，也因此愈发重视STEM教育等领域。”

调查报告显示，人们对STEM教育怀有浓厚兴趣，几乎所有中国民众都认为这个世界需要更多人投身到STEM相关职业中去（中国96%对全球90%）。由于疫情的影响，近九成（88%）的中国民众更倾向于追求STEM职业。与此同时，全球只有60%的民众表达了这一想法。

另外，为倡导STEM平等，96%的中国民众认为促进STEM领域的多元和包容非常重要。事实上，无论男女，都一致同意需要做更多的工作来解决女性面临的STEM不平等问题。为此，人们相信必须营造公正平等的环境。在中国，81%的民众承认少数弱势群体经常无法获得平等的STEM教育机会（全球73%）。

中国民众认为，解决STEM不平等问题离不开来自企业的助力。97%的中国民众（全球89%）认为，企业在推动STEM多元化方面发挥着关键作用。在那些认为企业应当为STEM教育提供支持的民众中，他们希望企业优先考虑的举措包括为孩子和老师创造更多STEM教育资源（45%）、投资于激发孩子们对科学热情的项目（43%）以及帮助确保弱势的学生有平等的机会接受 STEM 教育（40%）。

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