Fastest Growing US Export To China: Education

hackingbear writes "While we are importing billions of 'cheap' products labeled 'Made in China,' the fastest growing export from U.S. to China does not even need a label. Chinese parents are acutely aware that the Chinese educational system focuses too much on rote memorization, so Chinese students have flocked to overseas universities and now even secondary schools, despite the high cost of attending programs in America. Chinese enrollment in U.S. universities rose 23% to 157,558 students during the 2010-2011 academic year, making China by far the biggest foreign presence. Even the daughter of Xi Jinping, the presumed next president of China, studies as an undergraduate at Harvard. This creates opportunities for universities to bring American education directly to China. Both Duke and New York University are building campuses in the Shanghai area to offer full-time programs to students there."

Re:International Students Pay More

[marshac]

The University of Washington was caught giving preference to out-of-state students for this very reason. As a WA resident and tax payer, it's infuriating that our students are denied the chance to remain within their home State- even worse, they are at a disadvantage relative to the out-of-state students simply because they don't even have the option of paying that out-of-state tuition rate just so that they can be on a level financial playing field. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014670294_admissions03m.html [nwsource.com]

Re:IQ vs Street Smarts

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the worst description of IQ I have ever read.

Here read this so you know what the hell IQ is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iq [wikipedia.org]

and here is the second part of your post, it is referred to as Emotional Intelligence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence [wikipedia.org]

Re:Econ 101

[slew]

Although Yamamoto did spend some time at Harvard, he actually graduated from the Japanese naval academy. Ironically, having spent much time in the United States (he was later the Japanese naval attaché), he was firmly against attacking the US as he thought that Japan had no hope of winning a protracted war.

As to how the pearl harbor attack was so successful? Many attribute it be a copy of the battle of taranto (the first all-airplane attack launched from an air-craft carrier) where the UK destroyed some docked Italian battleships. My take is that Yamamoto copied the US war exercise where US Admiral Yarnell [wikipedia.org] performed pretty much the exact same attack on Hawaii with pretty much the same result...

He didn't learn our weakesses in school, but by studying history. Based on Yamamoto's prewar pro-US stance as a function of his time here, I'd say let more folks like him in.

Re:International Students Pay More

[goodmanj]

You, sir, are a racist asshole. I'm a college professor at a college that actively recruits Chinese students. I guess I missed the faculty meeting where they told us to never let Chinese students fail, because I fail them just as often as American students.

You're right, that these Chinese students have generally failed the Chinese university admission test. But a lot of Americans don't get SAT scores good enough to get into MIT either. The difference between the Chinese and American systems is that in the US, we have a broad range of institutions, with different expectations and admissions criteria, so if you don't get into MIT, there are other places you can go -- and many of them have lots of experience teaching students at your level, so you'll learn more than you would at MIT. In China, you either get into the top school in the nation, or you don't go to college.

The Chinese aren't washouts or entitled rich brats any more than American students are. They're coming here because they want the same things American students do: education that matches their talents, at a price they can afford. You worry about Chinese students applying pressure to colleges to avoid failure. I haven't seen it happen, but it's not a new thing: wealthy Americans have been trying this for centuries. And at a college with integrity, Chinese who want to bribe their way to a degree will have no more luck than the countless Americans who've tried it.

Re:Econ 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? Foreign students are doing more than just getting an education here... they are learning the American way. They're being exposed to our values, life-style, religions, government institutions, free-market economy, etc, etc, etc.

You must be speaking abstractly, without any observational experience to back it up.

In graduate school, I noticed next-to-zero foreign students interacting with the american students. They did not socialize with us, or even speak our language. Having had an exercise to critique and evaluate a classmate's written paper, I was downright shocked at the complete lack of any kind of grasp of the English language: half of the paper was plagiarized straight from the textbook, and the other half was poorly constructed syntax intended to glue the pieces together than only a native English speaker would have any hope of discerning (even after a lot of effort).

I'm honestly not sure how this individual made it to graduate school at all, and I'm not sure how they can be learning our values if they don't interact with us and also don't grasp the language. It must be the value of the diploma, not the experience or the education that goes with it.