International Mobility of Chinese Tertiary Students: New Trends and Influential Factors---Taking NUFE as an Example

Abstract

In recent years, the number of Chinese students choosing to study abroad is continuously increasing. The expanding scale of students' international mobility has exerted important influence on the politics, economy, culture and society of the countries of both origin and destination. This study has two purposes. First, by searching for secondary data, it analyzes the new trends of Chinese tertiary students’ international academic mobility: (1) Though the number is still continuing to grow, the increasing rate is slowing down; (2) The United States is still the first choice for the Chinese students but the advantage is not as obvious as before; (3) Among the students studying abroad, the proportion of their parents who are ordinary worker has ranked first; (4) More diversified destination countries to study abroad; (5)There is an obvious differentiation within the students studying abroad. Second, this paper tries to provide an empirical investigation into the factors influencing Chinese students’ cross-nation mobility and give some tentative recommendations that may help to stimulate the flows. Project publicity, project content, and economic situation, educational level of parents, destination and quality of higher education, all these are all important factors influencing college students' choice of studying abroad. The research is helpful to the foreign educational institutions to better design their enrollment policies. At the same time, it can also provide guidance to the domestic universities for the improvement of higher education quality and the internationalization development of tertiary education.