Studying abroad: a former dream, now a challenge
In recent years, studying abroad is no longer a novel topic, but it has attracted increasing attention. Compared to previous positive impressions, recent information is mostly negative. Since the 1870s, when the "father of study abroad education" Rong Hong first organized Chinese children to study in the United States, study abroad education has a history of more than 150 years in China. Until 2000, the development of studying abroad was relatively slow, and those who were able to go abroad were mostly government-sponsored or outstanding students. The number of students studying abroad each year was only a few thousand, which was very rare. Description (up to 18)
However, in the past two decades, the number of Chinese students studying abroad has grown rapidly with economic development and the accumulation of social wealth. Since the reform and opening up, by the end of 2022, the total number of Chinese people studying abroad has exceeded 8 million. In the 2022-2023 academic year, Chinese mainland students will occupy a leading position among international students from multiple countries, becoming the pinnacle of study abroad history.
Although the wave of studying abroad was once high, it has started to slow down in recent years. According to data from Open Doors, the number of Chinese students studying in the United States has been continuously declining since the 2020-2021 academic year, and from 2023, the number of Chinese student applications in the UK has also experienced its first decline in over a decade. There are multiple reasons behind the cooling of the study abroad market. On the one hand, European and American countries are gradually experiencing a trend of anti globalization, increasing policy restrictions and making it more difficult to study abroad; On the other hand, China's development in some fields no longer relies on "going abroad for gold plating", and the domestic demand for international students is gradually weakening. cnimmigrantexpo.com
In the field of employment, the advantage of international students seems to have gradually disappeared. The "2023 Overseas Study Talent Employment Development Report" shows that in the past three years, the salary level of overseas returnees has continued to decline. The average annual salary in 2020 was 268200 yuan, and by the first half of 2023, it had dropped to 204500 yuan. In public opinion, it is not uncommon to see phenomena such as "the response rate of overseas returnees to job hunting is lower than that of domestic college students" and "30% of overseas returnees earn less than 100000 yuan per year". The group of overseas returnees who used to have promising prospects now frequently encounter job seeking difficulties, becoming a hot topic of discussion. cnimmigrantexpo.com