US universities brace for a devastating drop in Chinese students

US universities are bracing for a devastating fall in the number of international students, especially from China.

A Chinese student graduating in Beijing last month. Far fewer of them are going to the US to study.

US universities are bracing for a devastating drop in international students, especially ones from China, where many US-bound students are now postponing plans, and even rethinking, the value of an American degree.

Coronavirus concerns have prompted broad travel restrictions and visa-processing delays that are unlikely to resolve before the start of the fall semester. On top of that, deteriorating US-China relations are threatening what has been by far the biggest pipeline of foreign students to US campuses.

Iris Zhou, an 18-year-old from Wuxi in eastern China, has been admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the coming school year, but the earliest visa appointment she could get when she applied in May was in November.

“If I can get a visa, I would definitely go,” she said, though she worries she might not get a full college experience with many courses taught remotely. The school says on its website that it will offer larger lectures online, with smaller classes taught in person.

New guidance issued Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement could hamstring Ms. Zhou and prevent other foreign students from keeping up with their courses.

Under the guidance, if a school has a hybrid offering like Wisconsin’s mix of online and in-person classes, foreign students won’t be allowed to set up a schedule of just online classes, whether in the US or from afar.

If a school is teaching classes entirely online, students on visas in the US likely will have to leave the country or transfer to a school with in-person instruction. If they are overseas, they can maintain a full online course load at such schools.

At some US universities, international students account for upward of 15 per cent of enrollment, and an even higher share of tuition revenue. There were nearly 370,000 Chinese nationals, or 34 per cent of all foreign students, enrolled in US higher-education institutions during the 2018-19 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE).

Chinese students account for one-third, or nearly $US15 billion, of the $US44.7 billion that foreign students in the US spent on tuition and other costs, including living expenses and books in 2018, according to Commerce Department data.

“It’s pretty impactful for that volume of students to not be able to participate as part of a US academic program,” said Rachel Banks, a senior director at Nafsa: Association of International Educators.

A survey of nearly 600 U.S. colleges and universities released by the IIE in May found that 88 per cent expected international student enrollment to decline this school year, with 30 per cent forecasting a “substantial” decrease.

Although a number of schools have diversified their pools of international students, they generally still pull heavily from China, meaning any disruption from that market will be particularly painful. Some colleges have more aggressively pursued domestic students who can pay full costs this year, but school officials acknowledge they are unlikely to entirely fill the gap.

In all, about 1.6 million Chinese students are currently studying overseas, according to the country’s Ministry of Education, with Australia and the UK among other big destinations. A worsening US-China relationship may drive more to look at non-US options. The number of international students in Canada rose 13 per cent in 2019, compared with the previous year, according to Canadian immigration data.

The University of Southern California, where about 25 per cent of students are international and nearly 14 per cent of the student body is from China, said it is planning for undergraduates to take classes “primarily or exclusively” online. Most graduate programs will be hybrid; for example, engineering courses will be offered both online and in-person.

US universities with overseas campuses have an advantage in being able to accommodate students who aren’t able to travel, keeping them enrolled — and paying tuition — in a somewhat familiar setting.

New York University has offered more than 2,300 students spots at NYU Shanghai. There is plenty of room on a campus where about half the students usually come from outside China — mainly the US — and won’t be able to show up this year.

NYU has another campus in Abu Dhabi and sites in cities including Prague, Florence and Buenos Aires, and is placing students in programs where they are less likely to get held up by complicated visa approvals.

The school isn’t sure how many will make it to its main US campus when classes start. “But as the window closes for getting the visa,” said Linda Mills, vice chancellor and senior vice provost for global programs, “their options are becoming fewer and fewer.” NYU hopes those students can make it in the spring, or at least next school year. “We see this as a temporary pivot,” Ms Mills said.

Li Ke, a recent Tsinghua University graduate, has already decided to defer her NYU graduate studies for a year. She frets not just about the visa and travel restrictions, but about US demonstrations against police violence that she fears may be destabilizing or prolong the pandemic.

“During the last three months, I have suffered from chronic insomnia worrying about various uncertainties,” Ms Li said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said China is paying close attention to US policies and will do its utmost to protect the rights and interests of Chinese students in the US.

Cornell University said last week that it will let international students study at overseas partner institutions, including elite Chinese schools such as Tsinghua and Peking University. But even with creative solutions like that, attempting a US-style education from China comes with its own challenges. One is China’s Great Firewall, which restricts access to many Western internet sites.

US colleges with campuses or strong partnerships in China, like Duke University, have their own virtual private networks to bypass Chinese blocking of sites such as Google and Facebook. Students physically on those campuses, or taking classes from home around the country, may be able to use those to gain US-style internet freedoms. Smaller institutions without longstanding relationships in China may not have such options.

Even with VPNs, “it would be quite challenging,” said Fang Tianyu, who has been admitted to Stanford University and has a visa but may remain in China if all the teaching is done remotely. “Their networks are secure, but the drawback is low speed.”

For science students, staying in China may mean missing out on the use of state-of-the-art labs and equipment. Meanwhile, some journalism and political-science majors say they would worry about doing reporting or field research on controversial topics in China.

The situation is compounded by longstanding fears over intellectual-property theft and spying by Chinese students at US campuses. A Chinese graduate student at the University of South Carolina said his school asked Chinese students to be prepared for all outcomes, especially those who have been employed by or studied at the entities the White House has identified as supporting China’s “military-civil fusion strategy,” which taps civilian research power to help bolster defense.

“We ordinary students are becoming ‘bomb ashes’ of the US-China battle, ” said the student, a graduate of the Beijing Institute of Technology, one of the entities targeted by the White House, using the Chinese equivalent of “cannon fodder.”

Dow Jones