To study abroad or not, and why? Exploring Chinese university students’ postgraduate intentions

ABSTRACT

Since 1991, the annual population of Chinese students studying abroad has increased dramatically, peaking at 703,500 in 2019. This study explores who they are and why they intend to study abroad, using university student survey data collected in 2018 from two major universities in a southwestern city in China. Bivariate analysis and multinomial logistical regression analysis were conducted to examine the family and personal factors influencing their intentions to study abroad, followed by non-parametric tests for identifying the primary reasons motivating them to study abroad or inhibiting such intention. It was found that although economic capital shows significant influence, intellectual capital, at both family and personal levels, has the strongest effect on Chinese university students’ intentions to study abroad. Furthermore, being able to accumulate/upgrade intellectual capital is the primary reason for them to consider studying abroad and selecting the destination, whereas the lack of sufficient financial support is a direct deterrent on pursuing international education. Additionally, gender difference matters on intention to study abroad.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese students
• postgraduate intention
• study abroad
• intellectual capital

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The number can be retrieved at http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/202012/t20201214_505447.html

2 Intellectual Periphery, Intellectual Gateway and Intellectual Note, are conceptualised in the introduction piece of this special issue (Li, Lo, and Lu, 2023).

3 ‘Project 211’ and ‘Project 985’ are national projects of China, launched in the 1990s, to fund selected universities to raise their research capacities and international reputations. The ‘double-first-class’ initiative was launched in 2017 to renew the two previous projects, aiming to create world-class universities and disciplines.

4 In China, the type of high school students enrolled partially indicates their educational performance and family economic status. Enrolling at key public schools and sometimes prestigious private schools indicates high academic performance; enrolling at international/private schools also implicates well-off family background; while non-key public school students show less educational and/or economic advantages.

5 China talent policy is an umbrella term to bracket policies designed to attract the desired talent overseas to China, especially Chinese students with graduate degrees from western universities (Miao, et al. 2022)

6 All OR values reported in text are significant at the level of .05 or .01 or .001, unless otherwise stated.

7 ORs are not cited in some paragraphs, because its values vary between models despite providing same conclusion, general trend is described, and ORs can be found in Table 2.

8 According to different survey data and official statistics, the US has been the number one destination for Chinese students for years, while Canada is likely to be ranked at the 3rd to 5th place (e.g. Colson 2016; Statista 2022).

Additional information

Funding

A grant from a US National Science Foundation grant (BCS-1660526), a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant (435-2017-1168), and a grant from the National Social Science Fund of China (21BJL097) funded the research project that this article is based upon.