Reported by Xinhua that a recent survey by the China Youth Daily shows that more than 80% Chinese university students want to study abroad. Here are some of the observations:

• More than 80 percent of university students in China want to study abroad, according to a new online survey.
• The survey, involving 2,400 university students, revealed that 42 percent of respondents believe an overseas education will be beneficial to their future career development.
• It also showed 66 percent felt students with an education background overseas were more competitive than graduates from domestic universities when it came to job hunting.

Regarding to preferred geographic locations for study overseas,

The survey also showed the favorite destinations for overseas study were the United States, Britain, France, Australia and Canada.

A recent survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong shows that the United States is still at the top position when Chinese students choose their destinations for study abroad. France ranks the second in the report, overtaking the U.K. who has been in the second position for many years.

According to the report, the survey was conducted between March and April, 2007 in 7 cities among 13,000 students who are going to graduate in July this year. It appears that part of the purpose of the survey is to find out how students in the mainland would view Hong Kong as one of their destinations for study outside the Chinese mainland. The result is that Hong Kong is actually in the 10th position. More detailed ranking is as follows:

1. the United States 17.7%
2. France 12.4%
3. the U.K. 11.2%
4. Canada 8.6%
5. Australia 8.0%
6. Singapore 6.7%
7. Japan 6.7%
8. South Korea 6.3%
9. Germany 5.8%
10. Hong Kong S.A.R. 3.8%

In respect to subject areas, the survey reveals that Economics and Management goes to the top, taking 24.4% in the survey, while Social Sciences taking 10.1% and Computer Science and Software Engineering taking 9.9%.

Given the fact that in the following 5 years, there are going to be about 10 million students looking for a seat in higher education each year, more and more graduates from secondary education would be forced to explore other options, since the capacity of higher education provision is limited and only half of the applicants can have the opportunity. The significance of the survey is that it provides with us some indications with regard to geographic preferences when people making their choices of study abroad.