Far from Home

Jing Cui, a recent Michigan State University graduate, was bold. While earning her degree in supply chain management, the Chengdu native helped organize the school’s homecoming parade. Through MSU’s International Student Association, she volunteered at a cat shelter and helped out at campus conferences.

These steps toward integrating into campus life may seem small, but to typically shy, group-oriented undergraduates from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), who rarely leave the comfort of their ethnic circle, such actions are unusually assertive.

Now working for International Paper in Memphis, Tennessee, Cui admits to “a strong personality.” Among her compatriots on the Michigan campus, she felt she was the exception.

“My goal in coming to the U.S. wasn’t to hang out with Chinese the whole time. I really like the American community and I wanted to learn from people around me.” What her Chinese friends tell her is how hard it is to enter larger college life.

Does this matter to U.S. university officials and international student offices? You bet. At a time when many U.S. students can ill afford college costs without financial aid, a significant number of cash-strapped public institutions and private schools are looking to Chinese undergrads to help internationalize campuses while paying the full-freight tuition fees their well-off PRC families can afford. 

Burgeoning numbers of Chinese undergraduates are driving the growth in foreign students attending U.S. institutions, according to Open Doors. In 2011–12, total PRC students increased by 23 percent from the previous year, to 194,000. Chinese undergraduate