When I was thirteen, I watched my cousin get to the top of her high school class with a clear goal of getting into a college in the United States. Her plan was successful. By the time her high school senior year rolled around, she had secured acceptance letters from many prestigious universities in the U.S.: Harvard, Princeton and Yale. I wanted that kind of future for myself.
To many Asian parents, U.S. universities are the ultimate dream for their kids. Not only are U.S. universities consistently ranked at the top of every world ranking, the prestige and the quality of education that comes with it seems to guarantee a golden future. That’s why when I saw how my entire family supported my cousin – the first of the Sy family to get into Harvard–I knew how deeply my family valued education.
Everyone knew what Harvard and Stanford were. And somehow, I knew my family believed a secure future lay ahead for me, if I could get the best education I could possible. It’s really prevalent in countries like China, where parents are resorting to extreme measures to help get their kids into a good U.S. university, such as paying exorbitant amounts of money for fraudulent applications, and falsified recommendations letters.
For more information: http://www.chronicle.com/article/Falsification-Is-Common-Among/65946/
Perhaps the main reasons why an international student would want to head off to the West to pursue a college education is the high quality of life and the independence that comes with the education. Students in Asia are beginning to see the benefits of pursuing an education abroad. Upper class families in the Philippines have the means to help their children pursue these goals, as the recent trend in the Philippine market have the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
For more information: http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/income-levels-poverty-in-the-philippines
Economists have also recorded an ‘emerging middle class’ in Asian emerging markets, with increased consumption for many Asian countries and two-thirds of market expansion coming from China and India.
For more information: http://blog.euromonitor.com/2010/03/emerging-focus-rising-middle-class-in-emerging-markets.html
It’s no wonder China surpassed other countries in sending students to the U.S. to study.