A 1999 decision by the Chinese government to massively expand its system of higher education had an unexpected consequence on the other side of the world. A new analysis show it triggered a flood of Chinese students pursuing U.S. graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields – and that influx in turn allowed U.S. universities to increase opportunities for domestic students over the next 15 years and also strengthened local economies.

The new study challenges one justification U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans have offered for curbing student immigration from China, namely that those students crowd out domestic students. In fact, the large number of qualified Chinese students able to pay the full cost of tuition fueled a rapid growth in U.S. STEM master’s programs, creating more seats for domestic students. For every four additional Chinese students, one more U.S. student gained a spot in such programs, according to a working paper posted this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). That impact, which the authors call the crowd-in effect, was most pronounced at large public research universities.

Source https://www.science.org/content/article/flood-chinese-graduate-students-stem-was-boon-u-s-students

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