China’s Higher Education Reforms: Hong Kong and Macau SARs Case of China’s HE Students Abroad

Abstract

This article tries to explain that in 1980-1990 China announced reforms to improve Higher Education. The question then was whether American branches could be effectively grafted on a Soviet tree planted in a Chinese garden (Pepper, S. 1990. China's Education Reform. Berkeley). We will try to demonstrate that in 2023 that China succeeded in implanting Western HE successfully in its education system. Why so many Chinese students study in the United States. In 2003 only 57,717 HE international students studied in China. During the 2020-21 school year, 317,299 Chinese nationals enrolled in US institutions, represented about a third of all international students studying in the USA. For these Chinese students—mostly in maths, computer science and engineering—the most important was to get an “American degree” (SCMP 15.11.2022). An important question in 2021-2022 is the worst recession since the Great Depression caused by the pandemic Covid-19 which perturbated also education and the number of Chinese students studying in America. Chinese students in the US, in particular, found themselves vulnerable. The USA, Australia, and the UK are the most popular destinations, receiving 33 percent of China’s HE international students. In the first six months of 2022, the US issued 31,055 F-1 visas to Chinese nationals, down from 64,261 for the same period in 2019, consequently the number of Chinese HE students going abroad is at present falling sharply. A main reason is China’s economy which appears to slow down in 2022.