Demand for International Higher Education among Chinese High School Students

• In Event: Examining student mobility from both sending and receiving sides: the perspectives of various stakeholders

Proposal

The purpose of this research is to explore the real reasons for demands and motivations of studying overseas of high school students in recent years in Mainland China. The study focuses on the following questions: What is the motivation for the prevailing preference of overseas higher education to the domestic among high school students in China? Besides financial factors, what are the social and cultural elements leading to the choice of international education? Thirdly, how do high school students choose their target countries and universities?

This study reconstructs the theoretical framework over individuals’ need for studying abroad based on the combination of the Theory of Consumer Behavior, College Choice Theory and Push- Pull Theory. A mixed method integrating quantitative and qualitative is adopted, in which data is collected by a large-scale survey and in-depth interviews. Field study has been done in 27 public high schools and 1 Sino-foreign cooperative college in 15 cities in China, with a sample of over 2500 questionnaires from the students in international department. At the same time, comparative data have also been collected from a smaller number of students from the regular classes of the same schools. The statistics collected are processed and analyzed through the software of SPSS. Moreover, more than 140 interviews with students, teachers, administrative staff, parents, overseas students and counselors of study abroad agencies have been done, which amounts to a total of 100 hours in interview.

This study finds that: 1) high school students in China show strong intention in studying abroad in a quite early stage; 2) the overseas higher education satisfies the diversified needs in China’s society, and while people have become more rational in their expectations towards the financial benefits, they still keep high expectations to the consumptional benefits; 3) the high school students’ demand for studying abroad is stimulated by multiple factors including the promotion of international education, the disparity of the higher education between China and other countries, and the difference in talent selection and training mode.;4.)Marketing strategies of overseas universities also play a part. 5) Chinese nationality characters play vital roles in the shaping of the motivation of studying abroad. 6) financial factors have minor influence on whether one is motivated to learn abroad but directly decide their target places. Countries and universities with lower tuition fee and living cost are preferred; 7) quality of overseas higher education is the most important factors that the students taken into account when choosing the destination, and the social prestige of the colleges takes the second place (including evaluation in the job market, anticipated income, career prospects and the social recognition); besides, the impact of the marketing elements such as sales strategies and cooperative activities also should not be overlooked.

Author

• Qun Kuang, Shanghai University