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International student recruitment campaign: experiences of selected flagship universities in China

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Abstract

Along with the significant improvement of Chinese universities’ visibility in the global higher education field, the Chinese government has been actively branding “Study in China” in recent years to market itself as a prevalent destination for international education. International enrolment has gained increasing importance and become a key component of the internationalisation discourse in China. Borrowing the theories of field and capital, this study aims to obtain a more nuanced understanding of China’s position as a leading host country for international students. Using a multiple-case study design, this study investigates the motivations for selected flagship universities in China to campaign to recruit international students, and in what way these are nested with the national priorities, as well as the key recruitment strategies and technologies they have employed. The findings help reveal the distinctiveness of the Chinese model of international student recruitment. A shift in priorities is also noted as well as controversies and tensions in respect to the employment of various recruitment strategies. The lessons of leading universities in China offer insights both for researchers and policymakers in many countries to rethink their strategies to increase their nations and universities’ presence in the global landscape.

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Notes

  1. U.S. Department of Commerce, 2018.

  2. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018.

  3. Higher Education Policy Institute, 2018.

  4. China’s official media.

  5. The figures were provided by the interviewees according to their institutional statistics

  6. Ibid.

  7. The Chinese language proficiency test, grading from levels 1 to 6.

  8. National Bureau of Statistics, Residents’ income and consumption expenditure in 2018, 2019.

  9. Statistical report on international students in China for 2018 shows that of all international inbound students, 12.81% received Chinese government scholarships, and 87.19% were self-funded (Ministry of Education of People’s Republic of China, 2019).

  10. Information Platform for the Supervision of Sino-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, List of Sino-foreign collaborative educational programs and institutions, 2019.

  11. For example, the program “Study in China” run by the British Council, offers academic scholarships to British students to study in non-degree programs in China. All scholarships cover tuition fees, accommodation, and a monthly living allowance. This program has operated since 2013; however, for reasons unknown, it is not running during the 2019/20 academic year (British Council, 2019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Centre for Higher Education Equity and Diversity Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Yuan Gao

  2. School of Humanities and Social Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Haidian, China

    Jin Liu

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  1. Yuan Gao
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  2. Jin Liu
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Correspondence to Yuan Gao.

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Gao, Y., Liu, J. International student recruitment campaign: experiences of selected flagship universities in China. High Educ 80, 663–678 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00503-8

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