Inbound, outbound, and transnational: the landscape for international education in China continues to evolve

China is broadening its approach to international education and talent attraction. The Chinese government continues to support the recruitment of international students, especially through targeted scholarships. At the same time, it is aware of public concern about the perceived special treatment of those students amidst a competitive job market and high unemployment.

As a result, the government is pursuing international research collaborations, opening branch campuses, and establishing joint programmes with foreign institutions as much as it is trying to attract more students to study in China. A new goal is to see 8 million Chinese students enrolled in transnational education programmes (TNE); the current number is 800,000. No timeline has been specified, but China tends to achieve targets with exceptional speed.

China’s attraction for international students

The number of Chinese universities placing in ranking systems such as Times Higher Education (THE), QS, and Shanghai (also known as the Academic Ranking of World Universities, or ARWU) continues to rise. In 2025, 108 Chinese institutions made ARWU’s top 500, just behind the 111 American institutions in that tier. This was a +10% year-over-year rise for China, compared to +2% for the US. Over the past decade, the pattern is even more striking, as shown in the following chart from Higher Education Strategy Associates. In this chart showing the changed position of 9 countries over 10 years, only Australia joined China in improved performance over time, and that was minimal. The US was the country with the greatest contraction in the ARWU rankings from 2015–25.

There is a similar 10-year contrast between the number of Chinese and US institutions placing in the top 500 on the QS and THE rankings: China is way up with fewer US institutions ranked.

Ascent up the rankings is a major draw for international students considering China for study abroad, but there are also other benefits. Among them are ample scholarships offered by the Chinese government (especially at the postgraduate level) as well as relatively low tuition fees and costs of living. At the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit, for example, China announced 60,000 new scholarships for African students.

What’s more, for students from over 100 Belt and Road (BRI) countries, the presence of Chinese companies in their home region offers opportunities for post-study employment. Over the past decade, Chinese companies have created millions of jobs in Africa, and China is the continent’s top trading partner.

The extensive range of the Belt and Road initiative – stretching across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean – has also fuelled the diversity of nationalities on Chinese campuses. QS notes: “No one nationality is over-represented among China’s international cohorts – an aim many institutions globally are attempting to replicate.”

QS expects international enrolments in China to increase by +2.5% annually till 2030 to about 550,000 – a lower growth rate than European countries as well as New Zealand, Malaysia, South Korea, and Vietnam, but a greater expansion than in the US, Australia, and Canada. Any growth will be thanks in no small part to China’s growing supply of English-taught programmes (ETPs). There are now as many ETPs in China as in many leading European destinations (close to 3,000), especially in STEM programmes and at the postgraduate level.

Language and cultural barriers an issue

The diversity of international students in Chinese universities is impressive, but QS notes that there is a downside: “[It] cushions against single-market volatility but also complicates recruitment strategies and programme design.” With top nationalities including Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Russia – and growing numbers of African students – it is not a simple task to support all students in terms of language and cultural integration.

Integration can also be complicated because international students are often housed in separate, more well-equipped student residences than domestic students – another point of tension for Chinese families. Vietnamese study abroad consultancy RIBA notes:

“Rooms are usually more spacious, fully equipped with private bathrooms/showers, air conditioning, mini-fridges, and even balconies. Compared to dormitories for Chinese students (often 4-6 person rooms, shared bathrooms, no or limited air conditioning), the conditions for international students are clearly prioritised.”

Growing resistance to inbound student mobility

Continuing a pattern that can be observed in other major study destinations, there is mounting frustration among some segments of the Chinese public about growing numbers of foreign students in in the country, especially against a backdrop of persistently high youth unemployment rates.

That frustration is in large part driven by intense competition for well-paid jobs in the country. In an August 2023 paper published by the University of Oxford, authors Wen Wen and Die Hu pointed out that:

“China is a non-immigrant nation with a surplus of domestic college graduates … its ability to absorb foreign graduates into the labour force is low and the legal limitations for foreign students to stay are valid.”

Since that paper’s publication, China launched the K Visa in 2025 in a bid to attract more STEM researchers to the country. Those eligible for the K Visa do not need a job offer from a Chinese employer, and the visa offers considerably more flexibility regarding entry frequency, validity period, and duration of stay than other Chinese visas.

The K Visa was launched the same year that China’s graduating class numbered 12.2 million, up more than +4% over 2024 and the largest increase ever. When the new visa was announced, Chinese social media exploded with posts voicing upset, some of them xenophobic. Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper interviewed Zheng Yifan, a 33-year-old tech worker from Chengdu, who said:

“I feel this visa doesn’t sound wise, and many in my industry share similar views. This whole thing leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of people like me who have climbed the ladder through sheer effort. China doesn’t lack talented people – we just lack job opportunities and resources.”

Similarly, Jakky Yang, a 27-year-old investment adviser in Shenzhen, said: “The fundamental reason many people like me oppose this visa is because our own domestic needs still need to be addressed. Many people in China are caught in a cutthroat competition, struggling to survive, while foreigners can easily access the benefits we have to fight so hard for.”

“Pretending to work”

If anything suggests just how dire many Chinese youth feel about their job prospects, it is the “pretending to work” phenomenon, which dovetails with the “lying flat” trend. Essentially:

• “Lying flat” describes Chinese youth who have simply stopped looking for jobs due to dismay over limited opportunities, choosing instead to stay at home, adopt a minimalist lifestyle, and sometimes be paid to take care of ageing parents or household chores.

• “Pretending to work” is a nationwide trend in which jobless young people pay a company for office space. One example is the aptly branded Pretend To Work Company in Dongguan, which asks for US$5 a day in return for access to an equipped office where clients socialise and/or conduct job searches. In 2025, the BBC interviewed Pretend To Work Company clients, who reported feeling less alone and less pressured by anxious parents in their rented office space.

Both “lying flat” and “pretending to work” are stark illustrations of the tension between the needs of the Chinese economy and the needs of Chinese students and workers facing barriers to landing good jobs in that economy.

Students returning in greater numbers

The situation becomes even more complicated because of the huge numbers of foreign-educated Chinese students returning home. About 495,000 students returned after studying abroad in 2024, nearly 20% more than in 2025, according to the Chinese Ministry of Education. The influx is partly fuelled by unfavourable visa and political climates in some host countries. The numbers have become so large that the government has set up an online job search and start-up assistance platform just for returnees. It has done so in partnership with 50 organisations to add a talent-matching component to the service – particularly in the fields of AI and advanced materials.

As with international students, there is some resentment around the influx, as domestic students and workers worry returnees will take all the most desirable jobs. The reality is more complicated.

Ba Ran, a vice president at the online recruiting firm Liepin Group, told China’s Caixin Global Magazine that the swell of returnees has reduced the scarcity premium of a foreign degree. He noted: “The rise of Chinese tech giants has created a demand for locally trained talent with a strong grasp of the domestic market, an area where freshly returned graduates can be at a disadvantage.” Over the past seven years, recruitment platform Zhaopin has seen a drop in Chinese job listings asking for overseas-educated talent.

While returnees with highly specialised STEM skills continue to fare well in the labour market, those with less remarkable credentials are commanding lower salaries in the past. Ba Ran says that HR departments “are no longer dazzled by an overseas degree … now they are more focused on concrete skills and a willingness to work diligently.”

Beyond inbound

Clearly, and as in so many other countries, there are limits to how many international students and researchers China can host without jeopardising social harmony. Jobs are a hot-button issue, and many a country can trace civic unrest or even revolution to perceived injustice around who can and cannot access good job opportunities.

The Chinese government seems to have foreseen this breaking point by investing heavily in transnational education (TNE). There are now more than 1,000 Chinese-foreign joint ventures or international branch campuses (IBCs) in various regions, including China. In fact, China’s “education blueprint” explicitly states a goal of attracting foreign science and engineering universities to set up shop in China. Hongqing Yang, chief executive of the Educationist Group, a Hong-Kong based consultancy, told Times Higher Education: “China seeks to cultivate talent domestically by opening up to foreign universities, especially as it faces challenges in sending its students abroad for education, particularly STEM education.”

Evolving approach

In the first 20 years of this century, the Chinese government invested heavily in the capacity and quality of China’s higher education system even as millions of Chinese students continued to go abroad. Three factors are fuelling a further evolution of China's approach going forward:

1. China’s emerging superpower status, massive investments in research, and well-cultivated alliances and agreements with countries all over the world now allow its universities to partner equally with top foreign universities, which is a new source of innovation.
   
   
2. More restrictive visa regimes in the Big Four study destinations, tensions with the US, and a lower premium for foreign-earned degrees are prompting Chinese families to question the return on investment of study abroad.
   
   
3. The public mood suggests that there are limits to the social licence for attracting more international students to China (a development we have seen in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US to various extents).

The UK has always been the leader in transnational education provision. In 2026, it faces far more competition in this area. Institutions in other destinations are rushing to set up branch campuses and joint programmes – often in response to government policies limiting their recruitment of students to home campuses. China is at the forefront of this race. The Chinese Ministry of Education approved a record 285 new joint education institutes and programmes at the degree level in 2025. There are now 1,589 active TNE partnerships involving China and another country.

As QS noted in its Global Flows report, China is steadily “positioning its universities as more credible partners in shaping the future of global education.”

For more information, please see:

• “China: Two-thirds of new TNE partnerships are with countries outside the Big Four”
• “China opens up to global STEM talent with new visa class”
• “Market snapshot: International student recruitment in China today”
• “Youth unemployment reaches record high in China”