Fewer US students choosing to study Chinese in China
Print Edition
AMERICAN students are getting cold feet about studying Chinese in China, with many study abroad programs seeing a substantial drop in enrollment over the past few years.
At the University of California Education Abroad Program, student enrollment in programs in China is expected to be less than half the level it was only four years ago.
Washington-based CET, another leading study abroad group, says interest in Chinese has been falling since 2013.
Given the importance of the US-China relationship, having a group of Americans across different industries who speak Chinese and understand the culture is “a matter of national interest,” says Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center in Washington.
“We can’t respond coherently, effectively and fully to China unless we understand China on its own terms,” he said.
The Institute of International Education says the number of US students studying in China fell 3.2 percent in 2012-13 to 14,413, even as overall study abroad numbers rose modestly.
The apparent loss of interest contrasts with Chinese students’ clamor for a US education. The number of Chinese studying in the United States jumped 16.5 percent in 2013-14 to more than 274,000.
For US students, job opportunity is a concern. As multinationals in China hire mostly local Chinese, a growing percentage of whom have studied abroad, they have less need for foreigners.
“I came to China thinking I could learn Chinese and get a high-paying job. I learned very quickly that was not the case,” said Ian Weissgerber, a 25-year-old American graduate student in China. “A lot of Chinese can speak English just as well as I can, and Chinese is their native tongue too.”
Gordon Schaeffer, research director at UCEAP, says surveys suggest the decline in study abroad programs in China might also reflect students’ migration to science and technology majors.
Some study abroad executives say a move toward more direct enrollment in Chinese universities could also, in part, account for fewer students taking traditional programs.
Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization, says there are too few agents in the US bringing students to China to study, and bemoans the US government’s inability to force universities to send more American students there. When they do come to China, they are increasingly coming for shorter periods, and often for trips that involve more travel than language study.
Enrollment in entry-level Chinese is almost half the level of 2007 at Middlebury College, a private liberal arts college in Vermont renowned for its language teaching. Last year’s Chinese enrollment was “the lowest in a decade,” said Professor Thomas Moran, chair of Middlebury’s Chinese department.
Between 2002 and 2006, Chinese language study at US institutes of higher education leapt 50 percent, according to the Modern Language Association; it grew a further 16 percent between 2006 and 2009.
But from 2009 to 2013, growth had slowed to just 2 percent.
Enrollment in all foreign language courses at US higher education institutions fell 6.7 percent between 2009 and 2013, according to the study.
“It really comes down to money,” says John Thomson, a China study abroad executive. “You’re taking yourself out of the job market for a couple years to study an extremely difficult language with no guaranteed pay-off at the end.”
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