Yingyi Ma Speaks with South China Morning Post on Drop in Number of Chinese Students in the US
November 20, 2025
South China Morning Post
The number of Chinese students in the United States continued its decline this past year, according to new data from an annual survey by the Institute of International Education (IIE), a report sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Still the second-largest student group behind students from India, a total of 265,919 Chinese studied in the U.S. in the 2024-25 academic year—a four percent decrease from the previous year.
Yingyi Ma, professor of sociology, said several factors could be behind the trend, in addition to anxiety over changes in U.S. policies, including the rise of “intra-Asia migration” with more students studying in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.
Also, “the return on investment is certainly going down,” she said. “Overseas credentials—including American credentials—are getting more and more devalued.”
Read more in the South China Morning Post article, “Chinese student numbers in US continue to fall as gap with Indian scholars widens.”
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