Student Finance for Chinese Universities

Chinese universities have recently started to attract a lot of students from abroad. The trend began in the 1950s and recent statistics shows that there were close to 410000 students studying in China as at end of the last decade. There were students from 125 countries and regions. There are undergraduates, postgraduates, doctoral students, trainees, scholars, and students pursuing research coming to China. China is one of the attractive education hubs. Infact, statistics shows that China was the 10th most popular destination for US students going abroad and third most popular non-western nation. However, foreign students cannot be employed in China while at study. Therefore, students must be able to support themselves and arrange for student finance before enrolling in a Chinese university. If you are one of them, how do you go about getting China university student finance? Read on.

Government help to students seeking finance to study in a Chinese University

Good news is that the Chinese government is encouraging its colleges and universities to expand the scholarship amounts and widen the horizon of fellowships and scholarships to foreign students and China university student finance. They are also encouraged to collaborate with private sector and come up with attractive scholarships for outstanding foreign students.

Already the Chinese government has approved finance worth $362 million to around 350,000 students looking to study in Chinese universities since the introduction of subsidized loans since 1999. The extent of subsidy provided by the government is 50% of the interest amount which is paid by the government and the remaining is paid by the students along with the principal.

However the government itself recognizes that the percentage of students who actually got the loan approved stands at 31.2% which is low and the government would like to grow this figure. The main cause for the low percentage is attributed to the fact that the private sector banks are not too keen on providing finance to students who want to study in Chinese universities as the loans are not required to be backed by collateral. Whether loans will be given out or not is determined based on the credit worthiness of the students and the absence of collateral is a deterrent in providing finance. As of now the People's Bank of China has appointed four main commercial banks to provide finance to Chinese students which are Bank of China, China Construction Bank, the Agricultural Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of china.

However such finance schemes which look at subsidizing interest repayments are at present only available to Chinese students who are Chinese citizens and have passed the requisite academic examinations

I am not Chinese, can I still get finance to study in a Chinese University or China university student finance?

There are finance programs available to international students who want to study in a Chinese University. One of the popular sources which the students are using today is to go to china by enrolling in an exchange program in a university that offers this option. Normally a host of universities have exchange programs going in which students from their universities visit universities abroad and students from universities abroad come and study in their colleges. These schemes exist not only for students who want to study but also for students interested in internship and working in these countries.

The main requirements of getting finance are credit worthiness, passing the requisite tests and getting through interviews and in some cases having collateral against the loan as well. However in the case of China some universities additionally put up the condition that the students should have a working knowledge of Chinese or Mandarin to be eligible.

There is a growing number of American students who are now interested in studying in China while in the past this was to gain exposure culturally and most of the students were of Chinese origin born in American the trend is changing now. More and more students are coming to China not only to gain cultural knowledge but also advance their careers professionally when they get back home. As a result commercial banks have also designed specialized finance programs with the needs of the students in mind and it is becoming increasingly easy for students to find such loans as China's Universities are becoming popular as an international destination for further education.