Colleges See Decline in Chinese Student Enrollment

Oct 23, 2019, 1:26 PM

(Inside Higher Education) China’s outbound student numbers are showing signs of slowing down, suggesting an overall shift in international student enrollment trends. While national-level enrollment data are not yet available for this fall, a survey managed by the Institute of International Education shows just under half (48 percent) of colleges reported declines in new students from China in the fall of 2018. Universities in the Midwest have seen the largest decline, including at University of Iowa, which is enrolling a total of 1,304 students from China this fall compared to 2,004 in 2017. However, the declines are not limited just to the Midwest. At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the total number of new international undergraduates declined by about 10 percent this fall compared to last fall, and the decline among new Chinese undergraduates was a little higher than that, according to university officials.

Following this trend in enrollment, many of these universities have turned to more creative approaches in an attempt to "reset" growth expectations at the university level, such as dual degree programs and micro campuses.“If this is the mature plateauing of the demand from the Chinese undergraduate side, then universities have to now rethink what does it mean in terms of their budgets, in terms of their structures," said international education analyst Rahul Choudaha.

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