纽约时报：中国父母怎么付得起美国学费
中国的高中生极力争取到美国大学读书。令我们不解的是这些学生和他们的家人如何筹措在美读书的费用。美国学生可以借债，但助学贷款在中国鲜有耳闻。“中国父母对（高昂）学费的漠然总令我惊讶不已”，帮学生制订留学计划的北大附中副校长江学勤说，“大多数父母拥有良好社会关系和财富……北京一名政府 官员月工资也就5000元，但这绝不是说他们只挣这么多钱。”很多家庭尤其是独生子女家庭，是把多年积蓄拿出来支付大学学费。若还不够，他们可能会卖掉房 子，大家庭的其他成员也会帮忙筹钱。
在美国预算吃紧的公立大学，外国留学生颇受欢迎，因为他们要支付比本州学生高得多的学费。比如在密歇根大学，来自上海的一名新生每年学杂费接近3.8万美元，而本地孩子只需不到1.3万。加上课本费、旅行费、食宿费等，中国留学生每年的花费超过5万美元。
江说，“当地人认为中国人是富裕的外国人，中国人则认为他们在为懒惰的当地人支付学费。这种差异导致中国学生普遍形成这样一种心理：他们在‘购买'美国大学的文凭。”
那中国父母为何愿意花这么多钱呢？江认为，“只有少数中国父母认为美国教育出众，大多数家长是把美国大学学位视为一件奢侈商品———他们想要的是孩子在美国接受教育的脸面。这种到海外留学的现象也源自从众心理。”
在中国国内，人们日益形成一个共识：回国的留学生正成为一个社会问题。他们回国时英语水平一般，市场技能一般，却抱有很高的期望值。江提到一个新趋势，“尽管他们并未真的融入美国，却养成了美国式习惯和思维方式，这令他们难以轻易地重新融入回中国社会。”
附：纽约时报原文：Chinese Students Paying U.S. Tuitions — How? And Why?
Rendezvous recently poked around the issue of Chinese high schoolstudents doctoring their applications to gain admission to U.Suniversities. Surveys and anecdotal evidence suggest that more than halfof all Chinese students will have faked something in their admissionpackets.
What we were unable to explore in our original piece,however, was how these students and their families finance theirAmerican college educations. U.S students amass debt, of course, buteducational loans in China are virtually unheard of.
"I'malways surprised by how indifferent Chinese parents are to costs,'' saidJiang Xueqin, the deputy principal of Peking University High School,one of China's s premier schools. He helps students and their familieswith their study-abroad plans, and he wrote to us at length about thecontours of this highly nuanced issue.
"Most of our parents areindeed well-connected and wealthy," Mr. Jiang said, "although it'sextremely unclear how much money they actually have. A governmentofficial in Beijing may officially make 5,000 yuan a month'' — about$790 — "but there's no way that he's only making that much money."
Tuition at Mr. Jiang's high school is nearly $12,700 a year, he said.
Many upwardly mobile Chinese families, especially those who haveadhered to the state's one-child policy, have been saving for years topay for college. If they're still short, they might sell theirapartment, and extended family members might kick in.
Of Mr.Jiang's 43 current students, only one has explicitly told him that shecannot afford overseas study. So she's looking for a scholarship.
Foreign students are highly prized (and heavily recruited) bybudget-challenged public universities in the United States because theforeigners typically pay much higher tuition fees than in-statestudents.
At the highly ranked University of Michigan, forexample, an incoming freshman from Shanghai is charged nearly $38,000 inannual tuition and fees, while a kid from Kalamazoo will pay less than$13,000. Add in books, travel, room, board and the occasional 2 a.m.pizza, and the Chinese student will be well over $50,000.
Mr.Jiang noted the tension that often arises when it becomes clear that theChinese (or other foreign students) are paying far more than theirin-state counterparts.
"The locals think that the Chinese arerich foreigners, while the Chinese think they're paying for the lazylocals to go to school,'' Mr. Jiang said. "This disparity also leads to amentality among Chinese students that they are ‘purchasing' theAmerican university degree."
So why do Chinese parents spend so much money?
"While there's a minority of parents who think an American educationsuperior, I think most see an American college degree as a luxury goodsitem — they want the ‘face' value of an American-educated child. Thisstudy-abroad phenomenon is also benefiting from a herd mentality."
At Mr. Jiang's school, the parents look most closely at the rankings by U.S. News & World Report.
"They're usually aiming for a top 50 school,'' he said. "The reallyprestigious brands in China are Harvard (every parent's dream school),Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and Wharton.
Mr. Jiang alsomentioned a new trend he's seeing — "a growing consensus within Chinathat Chinese students who've studied abroad and who return to China arebecoming a social problem.''
"They return with limited English and limited marketable skills, yet they also have high expectations,'' he said.
"As well, while they really don't fit in America, they have alsodeveloped habits and ways of thinking that don't permit them tointegrate back into Chinese society easily.''
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