The number of international undergraduates enrolled at Syracuse University has more than tripled since 2006 and students coming from China are making up a majority of the increase.

The dramatic increase has been driven primarily by the enrollment of Chinese students. Chinese students make up more than half of SU’s undergraduate international student population and outnumber the next largest nationality by more than five times, according to a study by the Slutzker Center for International Services.

The surge is primarily a result of economic changes, said Yingyi Ma, a Chinese studies professor. The growth of the Chinese economy during the last 10 years has given more parents the economic means to send their children abroad for school, Ma said. The one child policy is another contributing factor — parents only have to pay the price of college education once, Ma said.

“This rise of China really generates so many middle class families who are much wealthier than before,” Ma said.

Chinese undergraduates are more likely to pay full tuition than their American counterparts, she said. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, international students contributed more than $20 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2012-13 school year, making higher education one of the nation’s top service sector exports.

Ma also points to the relaxation of restrictions on F-1 student visas as part of the reason for the surge in Chinese student enrollment.

The incentive for Chinese students to study abroad is both symbolic and substantial, Ma said.  American brand name colleges come with a reputation for quality that Chinese parents believe will help their children be successful, she said. Foreign credentials offer a leg up for job seekers facing a market that has become more crowded since the implementation of the college enrollment expansion policy by the Chinese government about 10 years ago, Ma said.

Second-year graduate student Tuo Wu came to the United States from Wenzhou, China, to pursue an advanced degree in linguistics. Wu said that having a degree from the United States will help his future job prospects in China.

“Many Chinese companies prefer students with an overseas degree,” Wu said. “It’s definitely going to help me.”

Freshman Dong An from Xi’an, China, said that she decided early on that she wanted to go abroad to study media. After middle school, she elected to attend a high school with a focus on English-language studies. She said that there are more and more international high schools in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai that prepare Chinese students to go abroad for college by conducting classes in English.

“Actually, in China, there are abundant students, I think, who want to go abroad,” An said.

The growth of the international student population at SU is reflective of a broader national trend.

International student enrollment reached a record high of 819,644 students in the 2012-13 school year, a 7 percent increase during the previous year, according to the 2013 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. The report identifies China as the No. 1 country of origin with more than 28.7 percent of the total population of international students.

The report also marks the second consecutive year that international undergraduate students have outnumbered international graduate students. Although the statistic does not yet hold true on the SU campus — international graduate students still outnumber international undergraduates 2,032 to 1,395 — Pat Burak, director of the Slutzker center, said the gap has narrowed in recent years.

“At Syracuse University, undergraduate growth is really on the rise,” Burak said.

Though the Slutzker center offers a variety of services for international students, Burak said SU has not been able to scale up its programs to keep pace with the sharp increase in the number of international students.

“The university has admitted so many students, but has not ramped up the infrastructure to support them,” Burak said.

Burak suggested that the university could provide a Chinese counselor at the counseling center, better housing assistance and diversity education for domestic students to improve the experience of international students.

Many Chinese students are drawn to the United States partly for the opportunity to interact with another culture, but are then disappointed with how difficult it is to make connections, Ma said.

“It’s not their wish to isolate themselves from the rest of the campus,” Ma said. “The very reason they want to come here is to expose themselves to a different environment and interact with American culture.”

In a 2011 survey of more than 450 international students in the South and the Northeast, East Asian students were least satisfied with the number and quality of their American friendships, according to a study by the Journal of International and Intercultural Education. Students in the Northeast reported higher levels of dissatisfaction than their counterparts in the South.

Wu said that Chinese students sometimes feel excluded from American students based on cultural differences.

“Because of our language problem a lot of us have had a hard time adapting to American life,” he said. “I think the university should pay more attention to Asian students.”

Published on November 20, 2013 at 12:18 am

Contact Linda: lggorman@syr.edu