Ian Johnson of The New York Review of Books blog has a fascinating interview with Jiang Xueqin, a first generation Canadian educated at Yale. Jiang says:
In 2008, when I went to Shenzhen high school, 10 percent went abroad for their undergraduate degree. Now it’s more like 20 percent.
Besides a better education, part of it is capital flight. You have a Chinese economic elite who want to hedge their bets. That means sending their family and assets abroad. And this is leading to the next major trend: elite Chinese high schools in the United States. You have a lot of mediocre private high schools in the US that are staying afloat partially because of Chinese money. But a lot of parents don’t like the idea of sending their kids abroad to study with white kids who can’t do math. I know that sounds bad, but it’s true.
Jiang’s comments are refreshingly blunt. I think he is absolutely right in his predictions about international education.