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The Potential Coming Conflict Among Chinese Americans and Mainland Chinese

This week’s Economists Magazine has a featurearticle about the rapid growth of Chinese student population in US colleges and universities http://www.economist.com/news/china/21644222-yearning-american-higher-education-has-driven-surge-overseas-study-georgia-their . The article cites eleven times increase inChinese students in the past seven years and the  fact that 4 out of fiveChinese millionaire families and growing number of middle class families  want to send their children to the US for undergraduate study. In some  cases the whole family moves with the student and emigrate to the US.

Along with this trend, Chinese American students in the US are facing the problem of racial  diversity which is currently being litigated at the US Supreme Court (Some university,  particularly  the prestigious ones, worry about 30-40% Asian student population which they  argue creates racial and culture imbalance. Hence they must limit the admission  of Chinese or Asian American applicants. In other words, they must climb a higher threshold in order to be admitted.) Similar problem occurred with the Jewish Americans earlier  in the last century until they gained enough political power and integrated into the main  stream.

To complicate matters more, while a few universities such as Harvard have a need-blind admission policy, i.e., you are admitted based on merit and not on how much scholarship  award you need,  many private colleges and even state universities do not enjoy such luxury and cannot resist mainland Chinese applicants who can afford to pay the full $40k  tuition plus fees with no problem versus native Chinese American middle class  applicants who need financial help from the school.

Now, the importance of Chinese parents attach to the education of their children is without  question.  Thus, a potential conflict of interests will exist when CA parents began to feel  that wealthy  mainlandChinese students are squeezing out the future and  opportunities  of their own offspring. The problem will disappear if the US Supreme Court totally  outlaws the racial imbalance argument  or the Chinese Americans attend the same political influence of the Jewish Americans.  But neither possibility is likelyto occur in the  near future.  Thus, this potential conflict will exist. It is not clear how this will play out.

Note added 3/10/2105 : As if there aren't enough problems for CA students, now the problem has further propagated to high schools. See the new Wall Street article on how white families are abandoning good high schools when CA parents emphasize too much math and science work (see attached)   TheNewWhiteFlight-WSJ.pdf