In 2013, the number of Chinese students returning to China after graduating hit 90%. [1]
It used to be more like 9 in 10 would remain in the US to work.
If foreign graduate students are staying and working in the US, it’s probably a net benefit hosting them in US schools, even though it drives up demand and therefore tuition costs for US citizens.
If 8 or 9 out of 10 are returning to China, better to keep the spot for someone who will work in the US.
Now it’s probably government policy that’s the main driver for so many Chinese foreign exchange students to return to China (both US and China policies align in this sense), but it’s not like Trump is going to open up work visas for graduating Chinese students, so in that reality it makes sense to tighten the student visa issuance to account.
With 360,000 Chinese foreign exchange students, and I’m willing to bet that’s disproportionately private universities (5 million total enrollment) rather than public. I wonder what the elasticity of demand is for college these days, and how much of a tuition price drop that could entail?
Unfortunately my personal experience is there is very little integration on campus between foreign exchange and domestic populations, which precludes even the cultural benefit. Colleges claim they cultivate a rich/diverse environment but in reality the students largely exist within their own circle. It may be different at the graduate level, where ~25% of enrollment is foreign. I recall a NYT article last year about it, but I can’t find it presently.
[1] - https://qz.com/1342525/chinese-students-increasingly-return-...