Since the 60s of the 20th century, with the development of overseas education in the world, the United States has become the first choice for young people from all over the world to study abroad, and has become the country that accepts the largest number of international students. According to statistics, both in the 1954-55 school year 340,000 people, 1959-60 school year 490,000 people, 1974-75 school year 1550,000 people, 1985 86 school year 34370,000, 43 in the 1992-93 school year80,000, 490,000 in the 1998-99 school year and 78 in the 2013-14 school year40,000, 980,000 in the 2014-15 school year and 1.2 million in the 2015-16 school year.
International students from all over the world are keen to study in the United States for the following reasons:
First, the United States has the most abundant high-quality educational resources in the world.
American universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology are world-renowned for their facilities, resources and faculty quality. Its outstanding ability to innovate in knowledge has made the United States the most important country in various basic sciences and knowledge in the world after World War II, and it is also the main source of America's academic and scientific and technological advantages.
This advantage is fully reflected in the Nobel Prize, which marks the highest level of basic research in the world. From the first Nobel Prize in 1901 to 2015, there are more than 300 Nobel laureates in the United States. And this situation, after World War II, is in a state of acceleration. In the first 30 years from 1901 to 1930, the United States had only three of the world's 92 Nobel laureates. But in the 20 years since 1985, 82 of the 136 Nobel laureates in chemistry, physiology or medicine, and physics have been American scientists or scientists with permanent residency in the United States.
The United States' high-quality higher education resources, complete education system, and flexible curriculum system provide a relaxed and good learning environment for young students.
Second, American universities have more funding and scholarships. Strong economic strength and diversified funding** make the United States spend hundreds of billions of dollars on higher education every year, and the university research and development (RD) budget is tens of billions of dollars, which is difficult for countries around the world to match. This not only enables American universities to have abundant funding for scientific research and teaching, but also makes it possible for them to establish a set of flexible and diverse funding methods and systems, especially for outstanding students pursuing graduate degrees, who can generally obtain different forms of funding and scholarships. So that outstanding students, regardless of their financial ability, can have the opportunity and hope to complete their studies.
Third, American universities and society have a relatively relaxed and free academic environment, where students and researchers can freely discuss and research issues of interest to them, triggering academic disputes and collisions of opinions.
Fourth, there is a more scientific and fair talent mechanism. The United States has a large number of talents, but it is less about seniority and more about challenges and innovation; The social concept and mechanism of respecting and respecting individual originality are relatively sound, which makes it easier for young talents to get ahead.
Fifth, the talent market has strong competitiveness. A favorable scientific research environment, favorable treatment, and employment opportunities generated by a large and sustainable scale of social economy have made the American talent market highly competitive.
Sixth, the United States is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country with distinctive multicultural characteristics. Americans' concept of openness, harmony, and tolerance is easy for international students from all over the world to adapt to and accept.
The most abundant gold degree, worthwhile talent and practical learning, and good development prospects are the pursuit of investment students. These advantages of the United States are in line with the trend and reality of contemporary young people's open-mindedness and diversification of the purpose of studying abroad, and are also in line with the goals and interests of the countries sending international students, so it has naturally become the first choice.
But after entering this century. With the decline of the U.S. economy and international status, the signboard of the best destination for studying in the U.S. has begun to fade.
The first is the change in the study environment in the United States.
After the 9/11" incident, the United States introduced a series of policies aimed at strengthening the visa system and monitoring students and scholars in the United States out of concern about the United States, which greatly reduced the charm of studying in the United States. In the 2003-2004 school year, the number of foreign students studying in the United States declined for the first time, according to the New York Association of International Education. Survey figures also show that the number of people visiting the United States from Chinese mainland and Taiwan has decreased since the incident. In 2004, the number of Chinese students enrolled in the GRE dropped by about half. The number of Taiwanese students in the United States dropped from 37,581 at the peak to 10,324 in 2003, less than 1.3 at the peak.
We can hear the laments of the "glass ceiling" of students studying in the United States, and we can also read the sad sigh written by the Chinese-American scholar Wen Ho Lee in prison, "I may have made the biggest mistake in my life, and I should not have gone to the United States in 1964 to study for a doctorate."
Especially. In November 2018, Trump developed and launched the infamous China initiative. Under the pretext of cracking down on economic espionage and protecting intellectual property rights, the plan harasses Chinese experts and scholars,** to prevent China from "stealing information from the United States." According to a survey in the international scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), after more than three years of surveying the China Initiative, more than one-third of Chinese-American scientists "feel unwelcome," nearly three-quarters (72%) "feel unsafe as academic researchers," and about 70% are "fearful of Chinese-American researchers."
On February 23, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the termination of the "China Initiative" launched during the Trump period. But the effects and repercussions of the program will last a long time. Recently, Chinese students with legal documents have been subjected to unwarranted interrogation, harassment, and repatriation of their visas by U.S. border enforcement officers when they enter the United States. This practice in the United States has had a serious impact on the studies of overseas students and has brought great psychological harm.
Second, the U.S. higher education budget has shrunk. Universities are experiencing a decline in funding, and many colleges and universities in the United States are facing financial difficulties due to underinvestment and lack of funding. As the number of international students enrolled, the school's operating income has gradually decreased. However, the deterioration of the study environment means that the reduction of funding means that there are fewer opportunities to receive financial assistance, which discourages outstanding students and forms a vicious circle. All this shows that although studying in the United States still retains a certain charm, it seems that the scenery of the past is no longer there.
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