The current teenage and college-aged generation of China currently are taking advantage of a national effort to produce college graduates in numbers the world has never seen before. China is making a $250 billion-a-year investment in what economists call human capital. This is similar to the United States in the 1940s and early 1950s when the United States helped build up a white-collar middle class by using the G.I. Bill to educate millions of World War II veterans. China expects to have nearly 195 million community college and university graduates by the end of the decade. However, despite China's investment, well-educated professors are scarce in China. Therefore, many Chinese seek scholarships and federal grants to come to America to study. They hope to have around 120 million in the United States by the end of the decade as well.
The question is however, should we Americans be worried about job opportunities as China produces vast numbers of graduates to compete with us in the job market. The argument can be made that America still has the highest caliber in quality higher education. However, multinationals including I.B.M, General Electric, Intel, and General Motors have each hired thousands of graduates from Chinese universities. And what happens in a couple decades when the well-educated Chinese generation becomes the prime age to become professors, that would then lower the rate of Chinese students coming to America. Why would they come to America when they would have the same caliber professors in China the next couple decades?
In addition, in comparing elementary and high school academic curriculum and test statistics, China is well above America in math and sciences. Chinese culture emphasizes the family sacrifice to give the children all the resources to reach the highest and best education that they can afford. Hundreds of families across China and other Asian nations focus their money on getting their children through high school and college rather than pursuing material comforts. Can we Americans honestly say that as a culture we allow education to overshadow material items? I'd like to think we can but coming from an Asian background I've been thrown into both cultures simultaneously and sadly, I think American high school and elementary education is no where as demanding as other nations.
Sourcehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/chinas-ambitious-goal-for-boom-in-college-graduates.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
5 comments:
I agree with you that schools in the U.S. don't focus much on things like math or natural science.Instead they focus on the development of individuals. Children are encourage to be creative, to discover themselves, to follow their interests, and to socialize; they are taught how to survive in life. And I'm not sure which one is better: focusing on pure science knowledge or developing his/her own characteristics.
One more thing is that U.S. college students, after graduating, still have better chance in the job market, simply because they have better soft skills which are more important in applying, interviewing for a job and actually completing the job. In the case of parents in Asian countries as you said, in my opinion, they are now step by step realizing the importance of those soft skills, and that's one of the reasons why they send their children to the U.S. to study.
In terms of the job market, I agree with you that there may be reason for concern that China's vast number of graduates may compete well with Americans as you have stated that multinationals are already tapping into to that labor market. However, I do not see a significant decrease in the rate of Chinese students studying in America in the next decade or so because America's high quality higher education is not only based on its well-trained professors, but also due to the strong institutions that have existed and done well for a long period of time. Therefore, I suspect that the development of Chinese colleges will take time although they seem to be headed in a similar direction as America is already at right now as the article mentioned that Chinese universities are offering campus clubs, but on the other hand, Chinese employers are more reluctant to hire students who are less specialized like humanities majors. There is already a trend; however, of many students in the Asian continent particularly in developing nations to pursue higher education in China as the article mentioned an increase in universities in China.
I also agree with the previous comment that the US focuses more on developing the individual and allowing his/her interests to grow rather than making math/sciences every children's interest. I think that both cultures can learn from each other. The Chinese educational culture is extremely disciplined while the US educational culture has its benefits of stimulating creativity, critical thinking, and so on.
I think there should be a higher awareness of the increasing educational standards in China. As countries such as Chine increase their roles as economic competitors, the U.S. must focus on longer-term goals such as education. The inaccessibility (high cost) of higher education in the U.S. could turn into a lack of educated professionals in the future. In a world where people can easily move from country to country to accept a job, not educating our population makes us much less competitive in the global job market. Moreover, the problems with elementary and high school education can easily be seen in the states that have to lower educational rankings and also lower employment.
However, the idea of making education available for all in the U.S. could also make more internationals such as the Chinese come to the U.S. for the high caliber of universities. I agree that the heavy Chinese investment in its "human capital" could mean less Chinese feeling the need to come to the U.S. It could also mean that American professionals and post-grads would have to accept less competitive jobs, as the Chinese graduates flood the job market. I believe this process will be slow, however, because of the appeal of an American education globally; experience studying, working, and living in the US can often be attractive to employers.
It is well known and stereotyped that Asian students tend to be better at math and science than American students. I agree that this is due to grade school and high school education, but it may also be due to cultural influences. For some reason, it is common in the United States for students who excel in math and science to be made fun of instead of encouraged. These students are thus discouraged from learning more about these subjects which in turn leaves us with a smaller pool of educated adults in these areas who can effectively teach our upcoming generations. While the United States is known for it's colleges and many students come here from all over the world, we also have many professors coming here to teach.
American schools do tend to focus more on social skills, which are helpful later in life, however, schools in other countries that focus more on academic learning are producing more knowledgeable workers. Depending on the company looking for a new hire, one skill set may be more important than the other. We may need to worry about other countries, such as China,producing workers who will take over jobs where honed social skills are not as highly regarded as academic knowledge.
This is a very interesting article. Although China is investing heavily into schools and education, does that translate into successful students and workers. My question is will they prepare their students effectively for the job market, for example the necessary skills to land a job. America has many students in college, however, many are facing difficulties landing jobs and paying off their college debt. As stated in the article, " Much depends on weather China's authoritarian political system can create an educational system that encourages the world-class creativity and innovation that modern economies require, and that can help generate enough quality jobs." Quality students working in quality jobs is a question I have about this massive investment.
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