Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Far more important for the next generation, the educational opportunities in a nation determine it's future. The quality of science and technology is far more important than the present military advantage, for that quality determines the military advantage for the next generation.
China Might Give the Ivy Leagues and Oxford a Run for Their Money
The rise in China of the foreign student, or liuxuesheng, has paralleled the expansion of the Middle Kingdom’s homegrown student body. While higher education is shrinking in neighboring Japan and South Korea, it is expanding rapidly in China, with the number of college graduates mushrooming from 805,000 to 7.65 million over the past decade. By the time Gonzalez rolled into Beijing in 2014, the number of international students was more than 377,000, up from 111,000 in 2004, according to the Institute of International Education. Most came from South Korea, followed by the U.S., Thailand, Russia and Japan. China’s goal: 500,000 foreign students by 2020.
The increasing stature of Chinese universities is helping the country’s marketing effort. Tsinghua University in Beijing edged MIT for top spot in the 2016 U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of the best global universities for engineering, and three other Chinese institutions also broke into the top 10. A pair of freshly minted scholarship funds also sweetens the deal for international students. In the summer of 2015, Gonzalez joined 99 other students in the first cohort of Yenching Scholars at Peking University. (Roughly one-third of the seats are reserved for Chinese nationals.) The scholars are housed in the former imperial gardens of China’s first modern university while they participate in a one- or two-year, all-expenses-paid master’s program in Chinese studies, taught in English.
China Might Give the Ivy Leagues and Oxford a Run for Their Money
The rise in China of the foreign student, or liuxuesheng, has paralleled the expansion of the Middle Kingdom’s homegrown student body. While higher education is shrinking in neighboring Japan and South Korea, it is expanding rapidly in China, with the number of college graduates mushrooming from 805,000 to 7.65 million over the past decade. By the time Gonzalez rolled into Beijing in 2014, the number of international students was more than 377,000, up from 111,000 in 2004, according to the Institute of International Education. Most came from South Korea, followed by the U.S., Thailand, Russia and Japan. China’s goal: 500,000 foreign students by 2020.
The increasing stature of Chinese universities is helping the country’s marketing effort. Tsinghua University in Beijing edged MIT for top spot in the 2016 U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of the best global universities for engineering, and three other Chinese institutions also broke into the top 10. A pair of freshly minted scholarship funds also sweetens the deal for international students. In the summer of 2015, Gonzalez joined 99 other students in the first cohort of Yenching Scholars at Peking University. (Roughly one-third of the seats are reserved for Chinese nationals.) The scholars are housed in the former imperial gardens of China’s first modern university while they participate in a one- or two-year, all-expenses-paid master’s program in Chinese studies, taught in English.
