Illustration: Liu Rui
Many Chinese students flock to the US for green cards or greener pastures. But they may end up university cash cows in those pastures, ready to be milked as needed to fill the yawning budget gaps at US schools.
More than 157,000 students from China were enrolled in US colleges in the 2010-11 academic year, maintaining their title as the largest source of overseas students in the US, the Institute of International Education reported in November. They make up nearly one in five of foreign students there. And the US embassy in Beijing recently announced a looser visa policy, making it easier for Chinese students to come to the land of opportunity.
But their booming presence is met with ballooning payments. Chinese students in the US are bracing for financial shock among hefty tuition, exorbitant rents, growing transport costs, and other clustering expenses. The University of Washington (UW), for instance, charges international students three times as much as in-state ones.
At a time when state funding is being trimmed and social donations are plummeting in the throes of an economic contraction, cash-strapped institutes of higher education are happier than ever before to bank on foreigners' deep pockets.
China remains the No.1 holder of US debt, but "This is a way of getting some of that money back" as Philip A. Ballinger, the dean of admissions at UW, was quoted as saying by the New York Times earlier this month.
My friend Molly Mok, a post-graduate at a business school in California, paid a total of $120,000 for her education, the equivalent of 40 years of the average earnings for a typical couple in her hometown of Shanghai.
But do their efforts really pay off? Fresh-faced Chinese embark on foreign study tours partially because of the glitz and glamour of US higher education.
My former schoolmate Jocelyn opted for the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Ivy League, to pursue her master's degree in journalism.
"It's a brave new world out there," she said, "where I was immersed in professional training on critical thinking, and spurred to be a voracious reader to get enough credits, unlike the give-and-take cramming or the laissez-faire teaching in China's universities. Plus, mega-learning resources were available at my fingertips. "
Chinese students' whopping schooling fees can be compensated for by cutting-edge programs, top-tier scholars, and greater academic rigor offered by blue-ribbon US universities.
But for more lesser-known institutions, bordering on diploma mills whose chief aim is to cash in on international students and churn out so-called academic credentials, their educational quality is being compromised by shoddy service, uninspired lecturing, and uninvolved faculty.
"I feel like I'm trapped in a Chinatown. The whole class was packed with Asians while home-grown Caucasians become minorities," griped Mark Ma, a major in information management at an obscure university in the state of Arizona, "I don't see the point in paying big bucks every year."
Another issue is that job openings for foreign students, for all their pecuniary tributes to the local economy, are scare all over the US. Flipping burgers, slinging hash browns and washing endless piles of dirty dishes are how most Chinese students moonlight on US soil, making ends meet.
Ma tried futilely to land a job in his field there. "Workplaces are inclined to recruit locals," he said. Things are not much better back in China. Gone are the good old days when a foreign diploma was lauded as a career-boosting tool and haigui (overseas returnees) were highly sought-after in the job market.
Nowadays returned students, with their mystique stripped away, are stuck with starting monthly salaries as low as 3, 000 yuan ($476), tying that of domestic undergraduates. "The cost-benefit ratio is dismally off-balance," sighed Ma.
The author is a Shanghai-based freelance writer. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn