Empirical Study on the Impact of COVID-19 on International Student Enrollment for Higher Education in China

Abstract

International students’ mobility was not spared in terms of the negative impact of COVID-19 on higher education. The majority of prior research on COVID-19 and international higher education has employed a qualitative research design. Few of the studies have employed a quantitative research approach. Our study, therefore, in an attempt to fill in the literature gap, explores the impact of COVID-19 on international students’ enrollment in China using a quantitative approach. Using cross-sectional data for thirty-one provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on the Chinese mainland, the study utilized Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares for the long-run relationship analysis. Our findings revealed that an inverse and statistically significant relationship exists between total confirmed cases and international students enrolled. Similarly, a negative relationship was found between total deaths and the number of international students enrolled for the 2020/2021 academic year. On the contrary, a positive and statistically significant relationship was found between total recoveries and the number of enrolled international students at higher education. Our findings add up to existing literature on COVID-19 and international higher education.