Fewer Chinese students choose to study in the United States

November 28, 2024

The United States continues to lose its appeal as a preferred study destination for Chinese students. According to the just released Open Doors 2024 Annual Report, published by the International Institute of Education (IIE), the number of Chinese students registered at universities and colleges in the US dropped for the fourth consecutive year, this time with 4,2% from 289,526 in 2022/23 to 277.398 in 2023/24. There are now almost 100.000 fewer Chinese students at American universities than at its height in 2019/2020, a decrease of 25,5%.

According to the same report, the total number of international students in the US increased by 6,6% to 1.126,690. Indian students now form the largest group of international students in the US. Their numbers increased by 23,3% to 331.602. Combined, Indian and Chinese students constitute 54% of all international students in the US.

India taking over from China as main supplier of foreign students in the US says as much about the meteoric rise of India as the leading education market in the world as it says about the dramatic demise of China-US academic relations. The US does not have an explicit policy to bar Chinese students, but growing anti-American sentiments in China and a variety of anti-China measures in the US, including the so-called ‘China Initiative’, the closing of Confucius Institutes, visa restrictions for Chinese STEM students and researchers, restrictions on cooperation in areas which are deemed sensitive for Civil-Military Fusion (CMF) and the end to the Fulbright Programme for China, have all greatly dampened Chinese students’ enthusiasm to study in the US, and the other way around. According to the same Open Doors report, in 2022/23 there were just over 400 American students in China, against 12.000 in 2019.