Chinese students continue to flock to UK

A new survey has revealed that nearly one in five overseas students at universities in the UK comes from China.

The report by the lobbying body Universities UK International comes in the build-up to the new academic year and reveals that UK universities welcomed 95,090 Chinese students for the 2016-17 academic year, a year-on-year growth of 4.2 percent. By comparison, the UK's second-biggest overseas student cohort, from the United States, was 17,580 - less than one-fifth the number of Chinese.

"Many Chinese students are attracted to the UK's high quality of education, and the opportunity to experience British culture during their student life," said May Huang, CEO of UK Education Weekly, a London-based education-focused Chinese language publication.

"The fact that UK university degrees take fewer years to complete on average, compared to China and the US (most UK undergraduate degrees are three years as opposed to four), is also a big attraction," said Huang, adding that she expects this growth trend to continue.

In addition to growing student numbers, Huang said new cohorts of Chinese students in the UK are also coming to the UK at younger ages, and making more diverse degree choices. The number of Chinese students applying for undergraduate degrees has grown faster than for masters, and figures for arts and social sciences courses are rising faster than for the more historically popular business degrees.

The benefits of studying in the UK are already felt by many Chinese students.

"I've never regretted my decision to study in the UK. It was my UK student experience that helped me to find what I want to do for life," said Zhang Feng, a PhD student at the University of Greenwich.

Zhang first came to the UK in 2013 at the age of 23, for a one-year abroad experience during his undergraduate degree at Anhui University.

He originally planned to stay for just the one year, but instead decided to stay for his masters and PhD degrees. Looking back, Zhang said the key benefits from his UK study experience were improvement of his English, critical thinking and research skills, and teamwork and leadership skills.

Liu Zilei, an undergraduate student majoring in social policy with government at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said she greatly appreciates the ability to communicate with classmates from all over the world.

"Living in a vibrant and diverse city like London, I’m able to broaden my horizons," said Liu.

For British universities, Chinese and other international students provide a crucial source of income. A recent study by University College London's Centre for Global Higher Education found that overseas students add around 20 billion pounds ($25.54 billion) to the UK economy each year.

In addition, international students also contribute cultural diversity to British universities, said Charles Cao Quin, deputy pro-vice-chancellor at the University of Leicester.

"In particular, Chinese students' respect for teachers, their learning attitude and abilities, are all qualities that can inspire and encourage their classmates," he said.

Despite the growth of the Chinese student population in the UK, however, it still lags behind that of the US and Australia. In the 2015-16 academic year, the US received 291,000 Chinese students and Australia received 112,000 respectively.