International education carries the great mission of enabling students to receive the highest-quality education in the world, broaden their horizons, and be inspired. As a former practitioner in the international education industry, I will summarize the four crises of international education in China, so that current and future practitioners could be better aware of how to deal with possible challenges and make a positive impact in this field. (I would explain why I left the industry and difficulties of performing data analysis in this industry in the coming articles.)
Crisis №1: International Relations and COVID-19
International relations are always causing slight fluctuations in the international education industry. Following Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States in 2017, he enacted policies that were unfavorable to Chinese students, such as longer and stricter administrative processing for students in certain STEM majors, 243(d) visa sanctions that affected some students from police families, and FBI accusations against some Chinese companies and Chinese scientists in the United States. However, at that time, practitioners in international education were still optimistic. Many colleagues around me thought that there would be no problem as long as students prepared documents carefully. Especially after Biden became president in 2021, many practitioners felt that at least he was very “normal” compared to Trump: he showed a more friendly attitude to international students and would not suddenly introduce policies unfavorable to Chinese students.
What really makes international relations very tense is COVID-19, especially in China. On domestic news platforms including Baidu, Bytedance, and TikTok, students and parents can see the news that a million new COVID-19 cases are diagnosed a day in the United States (even if it might be misinformation). For various reasons (including U.S. sanctions against Chinese companies and scientists) before the COVID-19 pandemic, some university managers and professors were not advising students to go to the U.S., and they are even less willing to allow students to go abroad after the pandemic. As a result, many students decide not to go to school abroad because their families and teachers, whom they regard as authorities, think that studying in China is a safer bet.
However, compared to the COVID-19 dynamics, the more profound and frightening impact on international education is the change in students’ and parents’ perception. Many people will lose confidence in international education, believing that foreign countries (especially the United States) are on opposite sides to China, which, unfortunately, would be an irreversible trend.
Crisis №2: Double Reduction Policy
While it seems that the double reduction will only affect off-campus cramming schools for elementary and middle school students instead of studying abroad, there is indeed an impact.
First, it would impact the profits of the education industry as a whole. If a company’s primary and secondary school business declines sharply, the task of earning profits will be assigned to other businesses, such as receiving greater sales pressure, raising service requirements, and controlling costs further.
Second, it would affect the confidence of students and their families. Many people with limited resources will give up when some services can no longer be obtained through consumption. I believe that in the next few years, more parents with average financial resources will tell their children to “go to a technical college” instead of paying higher costs to support their higher education.
This reminds me of the English reform of Gaokao (the college entrance exams) that my teacher was involved in when I was at university. Their discussion result at the time was to change the English exam to an optional one. Some college majors would require applicants to reach a certain level of English in Gaokao, and other majors would not require an English exam. We can see that English can be a barrier, and double reduction is also the case.
Crisis №3: Decentralization
The trend of decentralization is not only seen in Internet information but also in many businesses associated with international education. Taking study abroad as an example, nowadays people no longer go to one big company to consult advice on studying overseas as they did 10 years ago. Instead, there is a diversion in different aspects (resources for applicants, application process, application specialties, etc.).
In terms of overseas high school and undergraduate school application, many post 00-s students have post-80s parents with good access to information or have been abroad themselves, and they have the ability to guide the application for their own children. Also, many smaller companies have developed their own channels (such as developing connections with international departments of some high schools and obtaining access to all the students in that high school who want to go abroad). As for graduate school application, in addition to the previous factors, there is another reason: graduate students are older, and many already have work experience. As a result, many of them are able to seek help on their own based on the specific service they need help with, rather than signing up with one company and waiting for one team to do all the services for them. For example, they will find Consultant A to offer advice on choosing schools and ask Consultant B to make suggestions on personal statements. Humanities students will seek out Consultant C for advice, while science and technology students will look for Consultant D.
Crisis №4: More Complex Demands from Customers
According to my observation, in Europe and Canada, students seem to be less concerned about going to prestigious schools because it is not that easy to find a job with a high salary immediately after graduating from a renowned school with a master’s or doctoral degree. On the contrary, going to a vocational school and doing relevant jobs upon graduation is easier. The conditions in the United States are a bit different. Some wealthy people may expect their children to attend prestigious schools to expand their networks and pass on their family wealth, but most children from ordinary families feel fine about attending in-state public universities.
The situation is very different in China. Children are not going to school as individuals; they are shouldering the hopes of the whole family when they compete with other children for a U.S. News top 30 (or even top 10 school in recent years) in order to find a decent work position in China after they graduate. A typical Chinese family often has a busy-working dad, an anxious mom who needs someone to calm her down, and a teenager who still doesn’t know what they really want to do despite living in this world for more than a decade.
This means that many conflicts arise in providing services to them. Is it better to focus more on the university application itself, or to offer emotional support to the mom and child (and double the cost of communication if mom and child are in great conflict)? How to communicate effectively with a mother who does not speak English but wants to be fully involved in the entire application process? If the practitioners know that the goal of clients is to go to a top school regardless of other factors (for example, a finance major student applying for a social work major in order to get into the top school), should practitioners still implement the application plan? Raising each of these questions is asking about the practitioners’ own ethics and values.
When I think about the surprising case of the finance major who went to the top university to study social work, and launched their first job in a well-known financial institution in China with the perfect education experience in CV, my own opinion is that this may block the opportunity of another student who really cares about minority groups that are hidden in our daily living and wants to study social work, and as a result, people who really need help (such as homeless teenagers with family problems) would lose access to support. However, top universities are willing to offer admissions to such applicants, which is like a Chinese proverb says, “one is willing to give a beating, and one is willing to take a beating.”
