(Yicai Global) Aug. 7 -- Chinese agencies that could guarantee a highly sought-after place at a foreign university have seen applications dwindle dramatically due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic as students change plans and more foreign universities encourage new intake to take their programs on their China campuses.

“Many students have cancelled their plans to study in the US because of the virus this year,” said Lai Xiaomiao, a senior consultant for guaranteed enrollment in US elite universities, adding that the industry will face uncertainties.

US college program placer the America China Exchange Society has seen its business drop 90 percent this year from a year earlier and has laid off two thirds of its employees, the firm’s co-founder and Vice-President Liu Zhen said.

Chinese students made up one third of all the international students in the US from 2018 to 2019, amounting to 370,000 pupils, according to the 2019 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange released by the US Institute of International Education.

The US used to be Chinese students’ favorite overseas study destination. However, the escalating pandemic as well as tensions in China-US relations have caused many pupils to turn to the UK instead.

The UK took the top spot for the first time this year, according to a report compiled by Beijing New Oriental Vision Overseas Consulting and other agencies. Some British universities are even planning to bring back their overseas students on chartered airplanes.

Closer to Home

Those foreign colleges that have campuses in China are encouraging their freshmen to attend university closer to home, should they be open and safe to get to amid the uncertainties and travel restrictions imposed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New York University, for example, has recently rolled out its Go Local program and is directing new intake to its NYU Shanghai campus, jointly run by NYU and Shanghai’s East China Normal University. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is allowing students to take their fall semester at its new Zhejiang University-UIUC campus in Haining, southeastern Zhejiang province.

Duke University, Cornell University, Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University and Lehigh University are also offering students from China the opportunity to study at colleges and universities they run with Chinese universities.

Editor: Kim Taylor