As American colleges struggle financially due to declining enrolments during the Coronavirus pandemic, the Biden administration finally decided on Monday to ease travel restrictions on Chinese and other international students into the United States. Chinese students, whose academic programs begin on August 1, 2021 or later, can enter the U.S. before the start of their academic activities.
According to the US Department of State, students with valid F-1 and M-1 visas could enter the U.S. 30 days before school started in August 1 and do not need to contact an embassy or consulate to seek an individual National Interest Exception (NIE) to travel. Back in January 2020, President Donald Trump imposed travel ban on all non-U.S. citizens who were in China from entering the U.S.
The latest statement also says that under “National Interest” exception, travellers (journalists, students and certain academics covered by exchange visitor programs) from China, Iran, Brazil, South Africa, the Schengen area, the United Kingdom, and Ireland who are seeking to provide vital support for critical infrastructure may now qualify for a NIE.
However, it’s unknown when the U.S. embassy and consulates will open for visa application processing. The official website of the embassy says it “remains unable to resume routine non-immigrant visa operations” due to Covid-19 risks. Without a valid visa, Chinese students will have no choice but to postpone their studies in the U.S.
While the education industry and concerned students see the latest move as a potential major step of further relaxation on travel bans and has even sent a friendly signal to Chinese students to come to the U.S. to study, it also comes after pressure from American colleges and universities. The American Council on Education (ACE) wanted President Joe Biden to act quickly.
The U.S. colleges have urged the Biden administration to deliver a welcoming message to current and prospective international students in order to restore the U.S. as a destination of choice. As the country’s economic activity recovers, the American education industry is left wondering if foreign students, especially from China, will ever come back and contribute to colleges’ revenue.
The U.S. issued just 808 visas to Chinese students between April and September last year, compared to 90,410 in the same period in 2019, amid Covid-19 pandemic and political tensions between both nations. The drop in F-1 student visas for Chinese nationals represents a 99% decline, something that financially strapped U.S. colleges desperately wanted to reverse.
Chinese students remain the largest number of international students in the United States. According to the International Education Exchange (IEE), about 35% of international students in the 2019-20 academic year were from China, where a jaw-dropping 372,000 Chinese nationals attended colleges and universities in the U.S. – almost twice as high as the second highest, India.
Foreign students are highly prized – hence heavily recruited – by public universities in the U.S. because they typically pay much higher tuition fees than their American peers, who often receive financial aid. For example, a new student from Shanghai is charged US$40,000 in annual tuition and fees for a place at University of Michigan, but a local kid will pay less than US$13,000.
While international students overall contributed about US$39 billion during the 2019-20 academic year, almost half – about US$15.9 billion – was contributed by the Chinese students. Clearly foreign students, especially the Chinese, are paying far more than local students so much so that foreigners think they were subsidizing locals to go to college.
Even before the Coronavirus outbreak disrupted international travel and school terms, American schools had already seen a decline in enrolments from Chinese students, thanks to souring US-China relations due to trade war. Former President Donald Trump was suspicious of Chinese students, claiming that some could be helping Beijing to obtain trade and technological secrets.
Under Trump, the U.S. Department of State last September revoked 1,000 student visas awarded to Chinese nationals, claiming without proof that the students and researchers in question had ties to the Chinese military. In 2019, Washington restricted visas for Chinese students who researched any technology that could have national security application.
If Biden administration continues Trump’s anti-Chinese policy, the consequences could be severe to the education sector. That’s because nearly a third of all tuition payments to U.S. public universities come from international students. And international students normally pay full tuition, with only 17% receiving grants or scholarship from U.S. colleges or universities.
Last December, Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University in New York, urged President-elect Joe Biden to act quickly on international student policies. In his open letter, Bollinger told the new administration to “end paranoia of Chinese students”. He said the focus should be on attracting – and welcoming – the brightest minds in the world, regardless of nationality or country of origin.
To make matters worse, U.S. colleges are competing with those in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom for students. With hostility escalating between China and Australia, this is the perfect moment to snatch some market share from “the land Down Under”. Chinese students who chose England due to US-China trade war sings songs of praise for the British schools.
Not all Chinese students are rich. Chinese parents are never stingy when comes to education. They save for years to pay for their children’s education, and are willing to sell land and apartment, and even borrow from family members to make ends meet. China’s one-child policy makes education an even a more worthwhile investment to commit.
Besides a more beautiful and safer country, Chinese students forced to explore Britain have discovered that tuition, room and board add up to be less than in the U.S. The Trump’s anti-Chinese policy and the Covid-19 pandemic saw a massive return of Chinese students to the homeland. China is investing heavily in its own higher education system, with an increasing trend for students to stay home.
Two Chinese universities – Tsinghua University and Peking University – ranked in the global top-25 within the Times Higher Education global rankings. China, having recovered from Coronavirus pandemic, recorded an impressive 18.3% gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first quarter of 2021. Not only this means a stronger job prospect, but also that Chinese employers prefer to hire people with Chinese diplomas.
But even with the latest friendly welcome message from Biden administration, it does not mean Chinese students would hop on the next available flight to the United States. Parents still have concerns over not only the pandemic, but also the racial problems in the U.S. Exactly why should they attend class on campus in the U.S., and subject to hate crimes against Asians, when they can attend online classes?
There’s also the burning question of whether the U.S. colleges and universities, let alone the Biden administration, will recognize Covid-19 vaccinations received by Chinese students that have not been approved by the U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration). The ease of restrictions for Chinese students is certainly good news. It’s another story, however, whether they are eager to fly to the U.S.
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April 28th, 2021 by financetwitter
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Malaysian colleges and “universities” also need cash, it’s only patriotic we pitch for our “education”.
Except for a handful of universities, American “universities” are as rubbishy as ours, so there’s no reason other than ketuanan, dumb population, bad food, transport, bureaucracies, poor facilities, backward infrastructure, etc etc not to consider Malaysia.
Malaysia is closer to China.
It is so close that our key minister call China Malaysia’s older brother. Quite good sense in that and politically correct too.
What’s more, many of Malaysia’s ketuanan elite even choose to send their children to study in China. That shows you the high level of respect and trust for China. If the Chinese cannot get into their universities, then Malaysia should be their first choice. Singapore is out of the question, the islanders think they are superior to the Chinese. While we always think and feel superior to the rest of the world.
We need students (and everybody else) from China. We need to keep our “education going – even if it is just nowhere. We need to maintain the illusion we can do “education”, our public institutions need lots of continuous funding even when they input morons and output unemployable morons.
Our morons need and love their bits of papers. Even if their certification are from absolutely crap outfits. Certification is so valued and important that bogus ones are used. Many of our politicians have bogus qualifications, half-qualifications, fake degrees, bought degrees, degrees from fake or even non-existent outfits. Every hole in the wall in Malaysia, you’ll find one or two Malaysian holding doctorates.
Every Malaysian and his dog seem to want a doctorate. And every Malaysian and his dog do have their doctorates.
Malaysian “universities” also have funny “professors”. And many of them too.
We have many with masters degrees too. Guy who runs the car wash whom I always ask to only hand-wash my cars has a master’s degree. Some of those who deliver grub to me also have masters degrees. I don’t usually ask, but I suspect every other person and his dog in Malaysia would have their masters degrees too.
I would strongly recommend our Chinese brothers and uncles, though not their dogs to come get their degrees in Malaysia. Malaysia stands the strongest chance of acceptance by the Chinese, I’ve seen write-ups and blogs where the Chinese express their surprise at how strange our “Chinese” speak Chinese. But at least our “Chinese” look familiar, though poorer and downmarket in taste and weirder in behaviour. But at least our “Chinese” can be around to look “familiar” and for the Chinese to spit on.
Sometimes I read comments by the Chinese about the “bananas”, a term the Chinese discover used on our “English-educated” and from whom no Chinese should learn any sing-song “English” from lah.
I vote that our Chinese brothers and uncles and sisters should choose Malaysia over Yank land or Britland, countries which are racist and becoming more and more anti-Chinese. This is not to say Malaysia is not even more racist, but the Chinese do not have far to swim if they fall out of favour with our apartheid sistem and have to balik Cina.
I won’t say Malaysia would be cheaper proposition for the Chinese, the Chinese have plenty of money and splash money around easily and readily. If
the Chinese stay in Malaysia long enough, they may even get educated in how not to spend a sen, how to delight at being a kiasu. And, of course, moan and bitch about everything all the fcuking time.
The Chinese may not give a sh*t about taking over Malaysia, but if they get the hang of being kiasu they know they can take over the rest of the world which will not know where to fcuking run to!
As Malaysia is a country you can be assured of an oversupply