Chinese students abroad once considered studying in the U.S. as a “golden ticket” to coveted jobs at home. Today geopolitical shifts are tempering their ambitions and casting doubt on the economic viability of studying abroad.
The U.S. administration’s steps to revoke visas – later reversed after a phone call between the U.S. president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in early June – have intensified the uncertainty for Chinese students in America.
In domestic terms, employers are increasingly questioning the advantages of graduates from overseas universities, as they face rising skepticism toward foreign education and work culture.
With substantial funding from their parents, many students ask: is it worth spending money on studying abroad, when there is growing demand for local talent in the domestic job market?
Barry Lian, a 24-year-old graduate of a master’s program from Southeast China, who spent three years in the United States, dreamed of working on Wall Street – until his student visa was suddenly cancelled last July.
Lian, who studied economic statistics at one of China’s universities, lost his visa due to old restrictions imposed during the first term of President Donald Trump, which effectively barred visas for Chinese students and researchers affiliated with the Chinese military.
This left him with a summer internship in China and forced him to dive into a “race for jobs” in the domestic job market. Most of his more than seventy applications to state banks and financial companies did not yield the expected results, with most companies not even conducting a preliminary resume screening.
“There are probably political sensitivities at play in the actions of the interested parties”
The Chinese labor market – both in the private and public sectors – is not limited to graduates from the U.S. Of course, more professionals returning from abroad are coming back, but their prospects have become more constrained amid rising national patriotism and security concerns.
Since 2013, the number of Chinese students and graduates studying abroad has grown from about 350,000 to more than a million in 2021, according to the Ministry of Education and the China Globalization Center. However, not every company treats them with the same enthusiasm.
“We will never hire returned graduates, because among them there may be spies”
Such statements by private-sector leaders do damage to the image of foreign education and reinforce the sense of otherness among those who returned to China after studying abroad.
In 2023, several provinces, including Zhili, Guangdong, and major cities, banned foreign graduates from joining the Xuandiaosheng program – a government initiative to select talents for future leadership roles in the public sector and the Party. Also nearly half of the participants in the Yours program return to state-owned enterprises or government agencies, underscoring the appeal of such positions in the “iron rice bowl” of the economy.
“The public sector is becoming less welcoming to graduates abroad”
He noted that the atmosphere of fear regarding espionage has become a “social norm” in China, in particular through campaigns by the Ministry of State Security, which regularly reminds citizens of the “permanent” presence of foreign spies.
On the other hand, some employers regard graduates abroad as more “cost-effective” due to honed work habits and a better understanding of the local market, but they also point to a lack of adequate training to local standards and the “cost-effectiveness” of young talent.
“From what we see, most students returning after a two-year master’s program do not have strong academic skills, their working skills are close to the beginner level”
Ezio Duan, who studied in the United States for five years, also noted that stereotypes about returned graduates deal a real blow to job hunting: only a few offers from more than 400 resumes submitted, and the overall lengthy job-hunting process is a serious problem for China’s labor market.
Despite policy changes, questions of internal mobility and the adaptation of graduates abroad remain open: is it worth returning so quickly when the state changes security measures and reorganizes the job market?
In any case, for many Chinese students abroad, the question of cost and benefits of studying remains a major guiding factor – a topic that requires a more balanced approach from universities, employers, and policymakers.
