Inside Higher Ed reports that enrollment of Chinese undergraduate students at U.S. universities has soared in recent years. The number of Chinese undergraduates at American universities increased by 64.7 per cent from 2006/07 to 2007/08 and another 59.8 per cent from 2007/08 to 2008/09, Inside Higher Ed notes, citing data from the Institute of International Education’s (IIE) most recent Open Doors report. [Open Doors data show that a total of 26,275 Chinese undergraduate students were enrolled at American universities in 2008/09.]

As Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president and chief operating officer at IIE, notes in the article:

“There’s the increasingly economically strong middle class in China, who are determined to get the best education they can for the one child in their family, so they’re pouring all their resources into that one child, and they’re shopping all over the world for where they can get the best education. China has a number of strong universities, but not compared to the number of students who are interested in receiving a world-class education. So there will be more demand than supply.”

In addition to insufficient capacity in China’s higher education system, Inside Higher Ed notes a growing number of U.S. institutions targeting increased international enrollment as reasons for the surge in Chinese undergraduates.

While foreign graduate students in the U.S.— India, China, and South Korea are the top three countries of origin —still outnumber foreign undergraduate students, the increase in Chinese undergrads may indicate a change in “the face of the ‘typical’ international student” on U.S. campuses, Inside Higher Ed concludes. Such a change not only carries financial implications for American universities (unlike highly subsidized international graduate students, undergraduates usually pay full tuition fees), but will also contribute to increased internationalization of classroom culture and student life.