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BEIJING – Wenzy Duan dreams about becoming a delegate to the United Nations.
“I know this [ambition] is pretty high,” said the 17-year old Beijing native. “But I think I can give it a shot.”
To prepare, Duan wants to study international relations at an American college – someplace like the University of Washington. “I hear [it] is good at social science," she said.
The University of Washington is one of approximately 10 U.S. universities Duan plans to apply to in the coming year with the help of an education consultant she hired last summer.
“I know that the scores is not the only thing that the university will consider whether you can get in or not,” said the high school senior.
Duan is not alone. Today, China sends more of its students to America than any other country. During the 2010-11 academic year, 157,588 Chinese students were studying in the U.S. – an increase of 23 percent from the previous year, according to the Institute of International Education.
The growing market of Chinese students wanting to go to the U.S. has created various cottage industries in China and the U.S. – among them are education consultants who help students navigate the maze of college applications and "brokers" representing American universities who seek student candidates paying full tuition. But it's also fueled anxiety among American students and their parents about increased competition from abroad.
Education consultants: the main cottage industry
“When [Chinese students] decide to come to the U.S. and study in the U.S. school, they have no idea,” said Steven Ma, president of ThinkTank Learning, the consulting group with which Duan is working. "What do colleges in the U.S. look for anyway? What do they want? What type of students they want? And that’s where we come in.”
ThinkTank Learning, based in Santa Clara, Calif., offers tutoring and college counseling. Most of the students contracting its services have been Asian-American, but Ma said increasingly his firm began fielding calls from mainland Chinese families wanting their advice.
Eventually ThinkTank Learning opened a branch in Shenzhen in 2009 and then in Beijing a year later. It charges anywhere from $17,000 to almost $40,000 for tailored consultation packages lasting six to 12 months, dispensing advice on choosing the right schools, writing essays, or preparing for interviews.
“They’ll just tell you when you need to get something done by what deadline and how do you prepare your application to the school’s standards,” said Julia Yin, Duan’s mother, a petroleum engineer who hails from Hunan province. “Basically, everything is DIY [do it yourself.]"
Go West, Young Man (and Woman)
China sent its first student to an American college in 1850: A native of Guangdong Province named Yung Wing earned his degree from Yale University, paving the way for thousands more over the following century.
The flow of students from China to America dried up in the 1950s when the establishment of the People’s Republic of China gave way to tumult and isolation, and did not re-start until 1974 1978.
From then until just a few years ago, "It was almost all graduate students, most of them funded by the host universities through research assistantships or teaching assistantships," said Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the Institute of International Education (IIE).
Now, Chinese undergraduates drive the growth, particularly in the past two years. At the start of the 2006-07 academic year, 9,955 Chinese undergrads were enrolled in U.S. schools. The following year, that figure jumped to 16,450. By the 2010-11 academic year, 56,976 undergraduates made up a third of all Chinese students living in the U.S.
“What you’re seeing is the growth of the middle class of China who can really afford to send their kids to the U.S.,” said Blumenthal. “The Chinese undergrads are all coming virtually self-funded.”
Adrienne Mong
Wenzy Duan (centre) and her mother, Julia Yin, go over college choices with a ThinkTank Learning consultant in Beijing.
The fact that so many students pay their own way has not gone unnoticed.
"Foreign students spend about $21 billion a year in the U.S. in tuition and living expenses for them and their families,” said Charles Bennett, Minister-Counselor for Consular Affairs at the U.S. embassy in Beijing – where Ambassador Gary Locke has made among his top priorities the expansion of visa processing capacity in China.
“That’s a very large sum of money for U.S. academic institutions,” continued Bennett, especially as so many face shrinking endowments or reduced state funding.
The Chinese comprise at least 21 percent of all international students newly enrolled in American schools, which means that they and their families contribute roughly $4 billion to the American economy, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Edging out American students in America?
Recent reports, however, have suggested mainland Chinese students and their ability to pay full tuition are costing American students placement in American colleges. A bankrupt state school system in California – one of the most popular destinations for Chinese students – has meant that its well-regarded schools are seeing record enrollments from out-of-state and international students.
For the 2010-11 academic year, California welcomed the most international students – 96,535. And for the tenth year in a row the University of Southern California was the leading host U.S. institution for overseas students, enrolling 8,615, according to the IIE.
But the IIE argues adding mainland Chinese students is helpful for diversity. “Most Americans will not study abroad. On the other hand, their careers will be global,” observed Blumenthal. “They need to learn how to interact with professionals from other countries, and many of them will be from China. There are very few industries or business not affected by China.”
Moreover, at the graduate level, Chinese students aren’t competing against American students for a seat in the classroom, according to Blumenthal. “There still aren’t enough Americans in the pipeline wanting to get graduate training in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math,” she said.
But detractors note other challenges have surfaced as a result of so many Chinese students going to U.S. schools. Among them is whether some applicants from the mainland are cheating their way into admissions by falsifying their academic records or achievements.
One consulting company in Beijing that works U.S. universities, Zinch China, says 90 percent of Chinese undergraduates submit false recommendation letters for their U.S. college applications and that 70 percent enlist someone else to write their essays.
The dishonesty works the other way, too. A growing number of “education brokers,” who work on behalf of U.S. institutions to solicit Chinese students, have led to misrepresentations and predatory fees, according to a revealing report from Bloomberg News. Some agents promise admission to top-flight schools, charge exorbitant fees, in some instances including a portion of scholarship funds, and students can end up at schools that are a far cry from the "dream schools" they hope to attend.
Can China produce innovative thinkers?
The desire among Chinese students to seek an American college degree has grown stronger over the years owing to a number of factors.
Adrienne Mong
The parents of Dolly Luo believe an American college education will improve their daughter's future career prospects.
Above everything else, there is the fierce competition for gaining admissions to a preeminent Chinese university. The selection process is decided solely by the gaokao, an annual national college entrance examination that lasts nine grueling hours over two to three days.
This past year, more than 9 million students across China took the gaokao. And believe it or not, that number has been declining since 2008 as more students opt out of the gaokao and sign up for exams like the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), both of which are generally prerequisites for applying to any U.S. college or university.
A lively debate is growing about whether China’s education system can produce innovative thinkers who can enable the country to lead – not just catch up with or follow in the footsteps of industrialized economies like the U.S. or Britain. Such concerns triggered a widespread discussion online when Steve Jobs died earlier this year.
“The students here are not as robotic as Americans think,” said Gene Hwang, a 27-year-old Taiwanese-American, who has been working in China for ThinkTank Learning for almost two years. “But they are held back by some of the systems in schools, which emphasize rote memorization…. We work with them on [developing] critical thinking.”
Broadening those horizons
“When I get into America, I can get [a liberal] education [that] could open my mind,” said Zhang Yuqi, a soft-spoken but intense 17-year-old high school senior.
He’s been working with a ThinkTank Learning consultant for three months, reviewing which schools to apply to and working on his essays. A possible math major, he has his eye on Carnegie-Mellon and Emory where he hopes to find a climate that differs from his elite Beijing high school, which he says has too many “planned activities.”
Duan wants to study in the U.S., because “they accept all different kinds of different ideas. You can dream about anything,” she said. “In America, I can experience more…maybe all kinds of things I will never experience in China.”
For high school junior Dolly Luo, it's simply about getting the best education. “The U.S. has the most well-developed college education," said the 16-year-old Beijing native who loves Harry Potter and dreams about attending an Ivy League college.
Her parents have similar faith in the U.S. college experience.
“She will have more opportunities, and it will broaden her horizons,” said William Luo. In fact, Dolly’s father had harbored his own U.S. scholarly ambitions, but he didn’t have the financial resources to enable him to pursue his graduate studies in America.
“I hope when Dolly goes abroad and she learns American values or Western values that she can absorb the Western education – the good parts: the culture, the education,” continued Luo. “In China, we would need that.”
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The two things that did in the Roman Empire:
Corruption in the Senate
Foreigners getting in the Roman army and learning the secrets of the "fighting square."
We have the corruption and instead of foreigners learning our fighting ways, they learn at our schools.
WHY are we allowing this? What the hell is going on in this country, as I have a daughter in college, it BOILS MY BLOOD that foreigners are coming here getting financial aid that most americans cant get and then getting the JOBS that AMERICANS should be getting? WTH is up with THAT? Stop allowing these foreigners to attend our public universities and giving them AID that should be going to AMERICAN children who's parents have PAID and ARE PAYING into the system? Should be a "no brainer"
They are not getting financial aid. They are children of wealthy Chinese families paying out of country tution in FULL.
But I do believe the system is broken. US students should be top priority in this country and for the countries future but its all about the dollar. Goverment no longer wants to be a service to the citizens so all tuition assistance is cut, Universities are for profit now so they follow the money not the improvement of America. Look at Universities today versus 50 years ago. Its all about the money not educating.
Robert...these are full-tuition-paying students...you have them confused with the pathetic group of home grown morons who want to drink their way through college at somebody else's expense. These people are smart, work hard, and pay their way...they don't whine that somebody owes them a living....you should be glad we have as many of them here as we do
Angry Mom in GA, you are obviously an illiterate idiot. The article clearly states that these students are generally paying FULL TUITION out of their own pockets. They are not getting government aid that would otherwise be going to American students.
That being said, the American education system is broken and we do need to make education more affordable for Americans. However, this is NOT the fault of the Chinese.
Why doesn't China just let American Universities have a University there that is based on the American version of the school? I think one of the reasons the students want to come here is that they will have more freedoms to do what they want to do and be able to say what they feel without being persecuted or reprimanded for even thinking.
The UC system in California is crying for more taxes! I say no way, let them close them, if all they do is educate damn Chinese, who are hell bent on confronting us.
A pissed off Engineer in California.
"The dishonesty works the other way, too"
There is only one way...not two. The brokers are Chinese business persons looking to make a profit off of finding wealthy dishonest Chinese students. The other side (if there has to be one) are American Students. So, the dishonesty is one sided since I do not believe the US students are lying to or decieving Chinese students..... But thats my opinion
Asians and Indians are fast taking over this country! Its not the Mexicans/Spaniards that we should be so tough on (albeit they shouldnt get a free ride either) but they are getting the sensitive jobs conducive to selling us out to their own countries .....they come here to learn how to beat us at our own game!! And they're doing it!!
well said mom...we are in deep trouble...american is going to continue to look a lot different and soon...
my predictions is .....whites/blacks will become the minority...high paying jobs will be held by chinese and indians...just look around...I work in IT and see it every day...my wife works in medical and sees it everyday...the whites/blacks will have low paying jobs...their political voice will deminish and the whole landscape of america will change...
we will lose our country...
I see the day when we will be sitting around the fire place talking about "what it was like in the day"...and it will be gone forever...america has been willing to either give away or sell itself to the highest bidder...
Most likely my wife and I will live our retirement overseas...we travel the world so we have seen alot...americans do not have a clue to what degree we are losing our country, our heritage and our culture...it is a real shame...l lose sleep over it at times..
EXACTLY illegals wanna help this country and nobody can say tthey receive help from anybody. On that note the chinesse are in the colleges because they only STUDY and their parent pay for everything, mean while we have the BS mentality that you have to brake your back to value money. What a bunch of BS really. We are humans with brains, we dont need to do physical work only mental......
yea and it will be free for them because they are foreighers, in the mean time my daughter has $150,000 worth of loans to be a chef!!!!
I'm going to put in my two cents here, Flyguy. As you can see from my screen name, I'm a chef. Did I go to school to become a chef? No. I went to school to obtain a culinary education, which not the same as becoming a chef. If your daughter has six figures in debt from her culinary studies, my guess is that she went to one of the larger schools in this country, such as the Culinary Institute of America. The culinary program of study merely gives you some of the tools to become a chef; those tools can be obtained from any number of schools in this country, including many state schools and community colleges, for a fraction of the price of your daughter's education. To go into so much debt for a profession that pays so little in the early years, was ill-advised and foolhardy at best and hardly the fault of foreigners who attend universities in this country. In short, I'm hard pressed to find any sympathy in my heart for your daughter's plight. For one hundred and fifty thousand dollars she'd have done far better to spend that money on a small culinary program, staged in a few well-known high end restaurants here in the United States, then headed to Europe to learn and work on the cheap.
Flyguy1,
They're paying FULL tuition you idiot. They're NOT going to our schools for free.
They will be swarming to more than just our schools; opening this door is just another push to end life as we have known it! We have a government which cant give America away fast enough!
Don't give up your guns!
problem is namvet, the govt will come and take them eventually...you will either die or give them up...
thanks for your serivce...i recently visited vietnam and the tunnels etc...our boys had a tough time over there...i can only imagine...
Your right on all counts MarkWS-most accurate is that they will have to 'take' them, and most Americans are willing to die; as we have demonstrated in the past to preserve our freedoms which have not been free! Thanks for your kind words!
i am with you brother!
keep up the good fight..it will only get worse...i fear..
The Fed. needs to lower the interest rate so we can barrow some more cheap money from China and help the banks.
You can not let China to gain every thing from the United State of America. We are in debt to them by $1.2 trilions dollars, now they want to know what we know!!! At the end it is a weeking process to the U.S advanced technolgy and eduaction culture. We have many Chines Americans studying at many highly respected universities in side the country. Those should be enough for China to have if they want to gain the American academic eduacations. Countries of the American recent wars, like Iraq and Afghanistan, at which American soldiers spilled pure blood on their land to make a change in their life.... I see those people need to learn at the American schools than any other nations in the world for the very reasons that the American forces went there in the first place. China has nuclear power energy, and has rockets can go to the space, and has accumulated enough US dollars, it can spent on its highly motivated students.... On the other hand, it is a good thing to see ambitious young generation of the world dreaming to come to the USA to learn more.... If you are an educator in the USA, this will only make you feel more proud !!!!!
You should be in college learning to write and use correct grammar!
This is so sad on so many levels. We as a country just can't help ourselves. Our greed will be our undoing.
We hear that other countries have better engineers and so forth.
If they are coming here to study, just maybe the school is not the problem but the students.
The higher the education cost the less poor American can afford to go to school. Hey we now have a working class of plumbers, mechanics, and people to replace the illegals in the fields.
I wonder if we can blame Obama for this?
A plumber, carpenter, or a mechanic used to pay a middle class wage, still pays well.
And forty years ago it was not uncommon to see Americans working in the fields, many of them young white people, I know I was one of them.
Our education system has lost it's way, dumbing down many of our youth.
There are excemptions, many deserving American students can't afford higher education, have limited oppourtunity and high debt due to student loans when they graduate.
NO you can't JUST blame Obama
We made the mistake of thinking everyone should go to college....that was never true and it was folly to go down that path. For their part, the colleges didn't care as long as they got money...the more that it came from government, the easier it became since student numbers go up, and there is only marginal interest in whether or not anybody is actually getting an education (except at the top schools). Thus the proliferation of 'feel-good' degrees that have little or no practical application in the real world....didn't used to hear much about that during full-employment, but just watch the news these days to hear recent grads lamenting the paucity of jobs in some of their chosen fields of study. Talk about not having a clue....
This is an eye opener...I hope our governors and congresspeople are reading this. Education went down when they did away with basic education...even math went from logic to the "new math" and I had a business math teacher in college who didn't even know what the heck he was teaching. Good thing I was a math major or I would have been in trouble. I'm disgusted with the commies who are ruining educations in this country. Now they are dumbing down the regents diplomas...we had to work for them. Kids are so spoiled now. There are many who graduate college who can't even write properly.
Not NOT import students from China ?
We import everything else, export our money back to China.
While America's middle/working class is so economically depleted, over-taxed and over-regulated that our young people can't afford a college degree, having to borrow the money in student loans, if they want to go. In hock for the next thirty years trying to pay it back.
While our leaders support open door immigration, the Dream act and STEM, a surplus of labor that we pay for, LOW WAGES AND HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT !
One more backwards step toward this country becoming another third world nation....sad.
You gotta be kidding. Americans are too stupid to compete with the Chinese. They want the government to take care of them, and the unions have not helped the job situation at all. About 50% of American kids can not even recite their ABC's. And if they do go to college they come out with the equivilate education that a high school graduate got in the 50' and 60's. Over 50% of females by age 20 are pregnant, and within 2 years will be on welfare, the suspect father will spend the next 18 years in and out of jail for failure to pay child support. And neither has more than a high school education, if that. So let the Chinese come, Americans are not taking advantage of all that is offered , and simply just too damn stupid.
drad, you are 100 PERCENT CORRECT!
You are NOT correct....
Labor is a commodity, a resource, we have surplus of labor in the U.S.
Unions blamed for lack of jobs ? that is a stretch.
What about outsourcing and tax breaks for U.S. companies that provided jobs overseas. Over regulation and the high cost of doing business/living in the U.S., wages are not the only issue. But how do you compete with Chinese slave labor ?
You paint the American youth of today with a broad brush, lazy, 50 percent pregnant and in and out jail ?
Sounds like a incorrect rant based on incorrect statistics to me....
It is a bit extreme, but there's some truth in that comment. People have had a life of ease since World War II and they just don't want it bad enough anymore. The Chinese are hungry for success and a better life.
Individual States have been doing this for years. Favoring out of state students paying as higher tuition rate before filling seats with their own in state students, thus many in state students do not get into a college and either wait and try again another year, go out of state themselves and pay higher tuition, or go to an expensive private school. For state universities to now transfer this philosophy to Chinese students is not surprising. These are not institutions dedicated to higher learning, they are money machines!
College tuition prices (at public universities) are increasing in price faster than inflation for primarily one reason - states are withdrawing funding. When I started as a professor in 1984, the state paid over 40% or our university budget. In 2011 that was less than 15%. In 25 years, that will be close to zero (my guess, but it may occur sooner). That is the reason tuition is increasing faster than inflation (and why this rate of increase will continue for the next ~25 years). This year we had a 3% raise, which was nice. In 2010 we had a 2% reduction (yes, decrease) in salary (furloughs - unpaid days off). We had a salary increase of ~2% in 2006 and no increase (0%) in 2007, 2008 and 2009. It is not a complaint, I happy to have the job. I am just trying to inform everyone that faculty salaries are not the reason for the tuition increases, rather it is the regular and substantial decreases in the funds provided by the state.
Did anything in this article say the Chinese State is paying for these student's tuition and fees? If so, I missed it. These are people who value education, who work hard to pay for education, and because of that 'investment' they work hard after their education. You, on the other hand, just want to wank about government support....you are what's wrong with American education in general....and don't even get us started on the pathetic state of secondary education that is producing morons by the gross to feed the college system. The Chinese have no difficulty out-competing our own children for spots at the top universities....does that not disturb you? It should....but then, it's so much easier to just complain about government support.....
Wow...another vote of no-confidence in the American educational system? Not so much. How come all the whinny little turds commenting adversely to this article aren't flocking to China to get their free education? We can only hope that some number of these students stay on here after graduation and contribute to our society....our students seem more interested in binge drinking than studying (see recent news article about binge drinking!).
Have a drink Grandfather. So American kids like to party, not everyone wants to be a human robot. What is so wrong with Government money supporting Education, sounds like a win win if you ask me. In the Netherlands University is free. As a matter of fact I think the US Government should make the education of their citizens a number one priory. Education is as essential as air and water.
Have a nice day Sir.
Correction: priory should be priority. See - nobody is perfect.
i have been blessed to travel the world...been to middle east 3 times..all over asia etc...latin america, eastern europe...
what you fellow americans need to realize is that these chinese and others around the world ARE HUNGRY FOR SUCCESS AND WILL WORK THEIR BUTTS OFF TO GET IT...
while americans have gotten complacient(sorry if misspelled) and have lost the fire in our bellies..
for the record both me and my wife have a masters degree...worked very hard in school and paid our loans off..it is doable...but we hear and see many, many americans make bad choices...get the wrong education for the wrong price...complain, play the victim card...etc...make poor decisions with their budgets and blame everyone else...the chinese see us as weak and are moving in on us etc...it is our fault...
so the question is...what are you going to do about it...fight and roll over and continue to be weak etc...
Yea Mark and you are a machine that we need to admire. Idiot there is so much more of life than killing yourself with stress of how much money you own, how many bills you have to pay. The best scientists the world have ever seen were only focus in 1 thing. ENRIQUECER SU CEREBRO. You represent todays system.
US Unviersities (which are more for-profit than what their mission statements would have us think) will glady educate China's youth.
They'll accept their money, pushing out domestic students (who can't affort tertiary education without oppressive student loan debt). With the Chinese filling up university classrooms, dorms and coffers, it will do nothing more than continue to drive up tuition costs well above inflationary rates for decades to come.
As a college instructor, I am not alarmed as much by the increasing number of Chinese students who are enrolling in my institution, but more concerned with what I view as an unacceptable number of unqualified students enrolling. Many of them have such little grasp of the English language that they cannot keep up in class. A major proportion of our academic dishonesty cases involve such students. Finally, while you could say the same thing for American students, I also find that a preponderance of Chinese students are here to get the "paper" (diploma) and are less concerned with actual learning of subject matter.
I wonder how many of these students are getting admitted based on their actual credentials or on the credentials that are fabricated by the "education consultants" referenced in the article.
On a different subject, it is unfortunate that the state of education (cost and funding) in our country is such that institutions seek out higher tuition dollar students. As other posters have noted, this will come back to bite us in the future!
The Chinese Dream is to PRODUCE! The recent American ambition has become qualifying for welfare or some other social program. We keep paying people to not work and wonder why they don't get a job .We keep paying people to have babies they cannot afford and wonder why they keep having babies.
Meanwhile the fewer and fewer Americans who are responsible and do produce are being taxed to death to pay for the ever growing government dependent society.
SURE Why NOT? -- WE just love Multiculturalism !
NOT to mention it Meets Our Governments AFFIRMATIVE ACTION GOALS!
AND Why not Pay for them?
LET the Stupid Americans Pay for their Own Kids!
ITS a WIN - WIN ?
China is the next superpower, and America continues her decline into second-rate status.
It sucks, but these kids want it more. They don't teach video games, Facebook, or Jersey shore in college, so American kids are sort of stumbling out of the gate.