International student mobility to China: The effects of government scholarship and Confucius Institute

Date

2023-11-07

Authors

Lien, Donald
Miao, Liqin

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Abstract

Government scholarship plays an active role in attracting foreign students and promoting higher education exports. As a culture and education platform, Confucius Institute is also likely to affect the number of foreign students in China. Using the data from 188 countries over the 2003-2018 period, we find globally both attract more international students to China. In addition, government scholarship has stronger impacts on degree-seeking students whereas Confucius Institute affects non-degree-seeking students more. At the continental level, government scholarship remains effective, particularly for degree-seeking students. Confucius Institute, however, display opposing impacts for different continents. As the number of the Institute increases in a country, there will be more foreign students if the continent is of higher income, geographically more distant from China, or culturally less exposed to China; and vice versa. Globally and for most continents, we observe Confucius Institute affects the positive effect of Chinese government scholarship. The results offer policy implications for government scholarship allocation decisions.

Description

Keywords

Chinese government scholarship, Confucius Institute, international student, continent level analysis

Citation

Lien, D., & Miao, L. (2023). International student mobility to China: The effects of government scholarship and Confucius Institute. International Journal of Chinese Education, 12(3). doi:10.1177/2212585x231213787

Department

Economics