Overseas graduation may not be gilded, China's number of students studying abroad drops 20% from peak

For decades, Chinese people flocked to study abroad, but statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Education show a significant recent decline. The number is expected to be about 570,000 in 2025, dropping nearly 20% from the historical peak of about 700,000 in 2019. This is due not only to tightening employment and immigration policies in many overseas countries but also because overseas degrees are no longer "gilded"—the salary gap between returnees and local graduates is steadily closing. According to data from the Ministry of Education, the number of Chinese studying abroad surged from 179,800 in 2008 to 703,500 in 2019. However, since 2020, affected by the pandemic and global macroeconomic downturns, the numbers have plunged. A report by the Center for China and Globalization shows the number fell to 450,900 in 2020. The 2025 estimate of 570,600 brings the scale back to around 2016 levels. Meanwhile, the willingness of Chinese students to return home has significantly strengthened. Cities like Beijing and Shanghai have rolled out policies to attract overseas talents. Many citizens believe that the rule of "study abroad for gold-plating and high salaries" has been broken. Over the past decade, returnees earned 35% to 50% more than domestic graduates, but by 2026, the gap had shrunk to 15% to 25%. Liberal arts returnees from ordinary foreign universities with no internship experience now see starting salaries on par with domestic graduates. Conversely, the "new productive forces" encouraged by the government—like AI, big data, semiconductors, and biomedicine—remain high-paying fields for returnees, with fresh master's graduates earning between 280,000 to 600,000 RMB. With 12.7 million domestic fresh graduates expected in 2026, the job market is oversupplied. Parents are becoming pragmatic, calculating the ROI of studying abroad and opting to save the money for domestic graduate school or civil service exams.