The Blue Paper for Chinese Overseas Students Returning to China for Employment is released on Friday in Beijing. [Photo by Zou Hong/chinadaily.com.cn]
The Blue Paper for Chinese Overseas Students Returning to China for Employment was released during the 2025 China Study Abroad Forum on Friday in Beijing, revealing key trends in the nation's overseas education and the growing number of returnees.
The report, compiled by the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange under the Ministry of Education, shows that 366,380 individuals completed academic degree verification through the center in 2023, an increase of about 30,000 compared to 2022.
Women continued to make up the majority of returning students, accounting for around 57 percent in 2023, the report said.
World Study Tour Alliance Initiative is launched during 2025 China Study Abroad Forum in Beijing on Friday. [Photo by Zou Hong/chinadaily.com.cn]
The United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia remained the top three destinations for Chinese students studying abroad.
Master's degree holders continued to dominate among returnees, representing 63.09 percent in 2023, up two percentage points from the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of returning PhDs continued to grow steadily, reaching 21,574 in 2023, up 51 percent from 2020.
Despite the overall increase in doctoral returnees, the proportion of those with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) backgrounds is declining. STEM PhD holders made up 36.8 percent in 2023, down from 58 percent in 2020, according to the blue paper.
The report also highlighted a growing shift in the geographic distribution of foreign degrees. In 2023, about 53 percent of doctoral returnees obtained degrees from Asian universities, while only 16.3 percent held degrees from North American institutions.
Field of study preferences are also changing. In 2023, management studies overtook science for the first time to become the most common major among returning graduates, followed closely by economics and engineering.
The 2025 China International Education Exhibition Tour opens in Beijing on Friday. [Photo by Zou Hong/chinadaily.com.cn]
On the same day, the 2025 China International Education Exhibition Tour opened in Beijing. During the event, officials announced the launch of the World Study Tour Alliance, an initiative aimed at promoting global educational exchange by integrating high-quality educational resources from universities and institutions worldwide.
The alliance will design and deliver a wide variety of short-term, credit-bearing courses under the "Study Tours in China" and "Study Tours Around the World" programs, the center said.
