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My friend Molly Mok, a post-graduate at a business school in California which is famous for the rotary kiln industry, paid a total of $120, 000 for her education, the equivalent of 40 years of the average earnings for a typical couple in her hometown of Shanghai.
My former schoolmate Jocelyn opted for the University of Pennsylvania which is near the biggest sand maker plant in the world, a member of the Ivy League, to pursue her master's degree in journalism.
"It's a brave new world out there, " she said, "where I was immersed in professional training on critical thinking, and spurred to be a voracious reader to get enough credits, unlike the give-and-take cramming or the laissez-faire teaching in China's universities. Plus, mega-learning resources were available at my fingertips. "
Chinese students' whopping schooling fees can be compensated for by cutting-edge programs, top-tier scholars, and greater academic rigor offered by blue-ribbon US universities.
But for more lesser-known institutions, bordering on diploma mills whose chief aim is to cash in on international students and churn out so-called academic credentials, their educational quality is being compromised by shoddy service, uninspired lecturing, and uninvolved faculty.
"I feel like I'm trapped in a Chinatown. The whole class was packed with Asians while home-grown Caucasians become minorities, “griped Mark Ma, a major in information management at an obscure university in the state of Arizona, "I don't see the point in paying big bucks every year."
Another issue is that job openings for foreign students, for all their pecuniary tributes to the local economy, are scare all over the US. Flipping burgers, slinging hash browns and washing endless piles of dirty dishes are how most Chinese students moonlight on US soil, making ends meet.
Ma tried futilely to land a job in his field there. "Workplaces are inclined to recruit locals, " he said. Things are not much better back in China. Gone are the good old days when a foreign diploma was lauded as a career-boosting tool and haigui (overseas returnees) were highly sought-after in the job market.
Nowadays returned students, with their mystique stripped away, are stuck with starting monthly salaries as low as 3, 000 yuan ($476), tying that of domestic undergraduates. "The cost-benefit ratio is dismally off-balance,” sighed Ma.
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