Dive Brief:
- Todd Maurer, a consultant specializing in Asia and the education sector, believes the surge in enrollment of Chinese nationals in U.S. schools is on the verge of a decline.
- One indication is the shrinking pool of English-speaking, wealthy students in China that colleges have traditionally recruited.
- The recent surge in enrollment also could serve as its own deterrent, as Chinese students are less likely to see studying in the U.S. as a prestigious accomplishment and more likely to find high-quality post-secondary opportunities in China.
Dive Insight:
For years, Chinese enrollment in U.S. institutions of higher learning was concentrated at the graduate level. More recently, colleges have seen spikes in applications from — and have focused more money toward recruiting — Chinese undergraduates. Maurer points to research showing that Chinese non-vocational secondary school enrollments peaked in 2005. Since then, more students have been graduating from secondary schools, obscuring the shrinking pool of candidates, but Maurer thinks the hidden truth is soon to come out. In 2014, the number of Chinese students enrolling in post-graduate work in the United States declined for the first time.
Many colleges have grown to rely on international student tuition, much of which has traditionally come from China. If the number of qualified or interested Chinese students starts to shrink, however, there is good reason to believe that they will be replaced by students from emerging countries.