More signs of rising demand for study abroad in China this year Demand for study abroad is increasing quickly in China since the government re-opened the country’s borders after almost three years of closure due to COVID precautions. So far, Chinese students’ interest is especially focused on study options in Australia, the UK, and Canada.To get more news about Education for foreigners in Shanghai, you can citynewsservice.cn official website. Sinorbis, a leading marketing technology firm for higher education, scoured data from major Chinese search engines to discern which destination countries look most poised to benefit from rising Chinese outbound. The company looked at volumes of searches related to overseas study in the 30 days leading up to the border’s reopening compared with the same search parameters for the same timeframe the previous year. The Sinorbis analysis is particularly interesting given the Chinese government’s abrupt announcement last week that it would no longer certify online credentials earned from foreign institutions. The news means that Chinese students who have been studying online are currently scrambling to arrange travel – as quickly as possible – to the destination countries where their host institutions are located. It also means that new students who might have been intending to study online will instead choose to travel abroad to earn their degree on a foreign campus. We can therefore expect a sudden and steep uptick – as early as the first half of 2023 – in the number of Chinese students choosing to study in-person in a destination country. There is a great deal at stake in the next few months as foreign institutions with large numbers of Chinese students currently enrolled online will be challenged to welcome these students to campus (e.g., visas, accommodation, classroom capacity). Those that end up managing the transition relatively smoothly will gain a competitive edge among prospective students who will doubtlessly be watching from China. For many years, the US was the preferred destination for Chinese students, largely due to its many highly ranked universities and the global prestige of a US degree. But former President Trump’s anti-China rhetoric and policies and the rise in racism in the US toward Chinese during the pandemic contributed to declines over the past two years in Chinese enrolments in US institutions. SEVIS data shows a -29% decrease in the number of Chinese on active study visas in the US in January 2023 (262,992) compared with January 2020 (368,800). Chinese students remain at least as interested as they were prior to the pandemic in world university rankings when deciding where to study abroad, which remains a competitive strength for the US, but clearly safety and tolerance have become much more important factors than in the past. He notes also that perceptions of the value of a US degree in China may be changing: “Escalating geopolitical tensions between the two global powers may also have greater ramifications when it comes to Chinese families’ willingness to send their children to the United States compared to what we are seeing today.” Families might be contemplating a possible future in which their government might discourage Chinese students from studying in the US if tensions escalate between the two countries. Mr Wan believes that the new competitive landscape suggests that the US government should “ease restrictions on work authorisation and permanent residency” and that US institutions should “continue to express a welcoming stance, establish more transparent admissions and financial aid policies and provide adequate support for Chinese students once they are on campus.” Rankings at least as influential as before No matter the growing popularity of other destinations, however, highly ranked US universities will likely have no trouble benefiting from China’s opened borders. Earning a degree from a top-ranked university has become even more important for Chinese students. In 2022, the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Shanghai began offering Chinese graduates from the world’s top 50 universities (e.g., Times Higher Education and Shanghai Ranking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities) — with full-time employment in the city a hukou [the hard-to-get household registration document]. Those from universities ranked 51-100 can apply for a hukou after paying social security for six months.