Asia has disappeared. That is, Asia is missing from much of the Western news coverage about slow economic growth, potential double-dip recessions, and high government debt. Recent analysis has focused almost exclusively on Europe and the United States.
What does that mean for Western universities? They risk overlooking an important fact: Asian students will keep flowing out of their home countries, seeking education. China and India will continue to be the world’s largest student exporters, as a result of a shortage of quality institutions at home and parents who place a strong value on education. As The Chronicle has just reported, visa applications from Indian students wanting to go to the United States went up 20 percent in fiscal 2011, and the number of offers from U.S. graduate schools to Chinese applicants went up 23 percent.
Many Asian parents don’t bother stashing cash in pension funds, instead trusting in the deeply held cultural values that will drive most children to take care of their parents when they are old. The children are the parents’ retirement plan, and an engineer is a better retirement plan than a street sweeper.
In the case of Chinese students, the government’s one-child policy has meant that not only do children have two parents focusing their resources on a single child, but they also have two sets of grandparents doing the same.
Those family members have been socking away savings for their children’s education for some time, and they will not keep the children at home just because Standard & Poors doesn’t like the political bickering in Washington, or because the Fed chairman has a sour outlook.
Governments, not just families, are supporting outbound Asian students. A recent British Council analysis of countries that have strong government scholarship programs for students at foreign universities included Thailand. Who knew? I didn’t.
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