[exelius]

I would not agree with this. I went to an elite business school and my Chinese classmates all felt there was far more opportunity for them in China with an American education.

They’re not stupid, they look at China and see an economy growing at 6-9% a year while the US is stuck at 1-2% and they know where the growth is for the medium-term. They also see a mature American economy that can be tough to crack even for native white citizens, so its not hard to see how their chances of long-term success are much higher in China than in the US.

[kjeetgill]

My experience matches the parent's. Of a good 70 classmates the only two who went back had trouble finding work here. I suspect your business school experience might differ from an engineering department. A substantial personality difference wouldn't surprise me.

[seanmcdirmid]

Business school and liberal arts kids will mostly go back to China, STEM is very different.

[intrasight]

My Chinese STEP colleagues have or plan to go back. Too many cultural and political impediments to progress here now.

[seanmcdirmid]

Is that new? Because the trend has been very stabke for the past 10 years: fuerdai kids (with rich parents) who come to america to study major in liberal arts and business but will almost always go back because that is where their connections are. These are relatively new foreign students in the USA and constitute much of the recent boom.

The more tradition Chinese students who have been coming here since the 1980s (and don’t have very rich parents) mostly pick STEM majors. On graduating, they would rather work for Google in Mountain View than Tencent in Shenzhen.

[malchow]

More like US 4% and China 7%.

[worldengineer]

They are stupid, if they didn't know about China's fake gdp for the past several years.

"U.S. GDP could top 4% in 2nd quarter, economists say"

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-gdp-could-top-4-in-2nd-...

"Baotou in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region revised its estimated fiscal revenue in 2017 lower by nearly 50% in an annual work report"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-data/anothe...

"China fake data mask economic rebound"

https://www.ft.com/content/a9889330-f51c-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1...

[exelius]

Nobody can predict anything today, with president temper tantrum throwing weekly wrenches into the global economy. But over the last decade they would have been right; and keep in mind that even in China, most economic gains have been captured by the elite — which anyone educated in a top American university would be a part of almost by definition.

Also weighing heavily on people are family and cultural conflict issues. But anecdotally I can say that the majority of Chinese students don’t want to stay in the US for a variety of reasons; and that many feel their prospects are at least as good in China as the US.