This questionnaire study, involving 4,903 final year undergraduate students in China, investigated Chinese students' intention to seek foreign postgraduate education. Drawing on college choice models and “push-pull” models, this research presented a comprehensive model to explain Chinese college students' choices of foreign education. Logistic regression analysis showed that personal academic performance, foreign language proficiency, family socio-economic status, institutional factors, and quality of foreign education had significant impact on the intention to study abroad. The students' outward mobility was also driven by their dissatisfaction with domestic postgraduate education. The participants' perception of the academic quality of postgraduate education in the USA was the most positive, followed respectively by the UK, Hong Kong, and Australia. Theoretically, the research indicated that it was the “push-pull” pairs, as exemplified by dissatisfaction with domestic postgraduate education and perceived positive images of foreign postgraduate education, that led to Chinese students' decision to study abroad and their selection of specific study destinations. This study has implications for recruitment and retention of Chinese students in higher education institutions both in and outside China.
Why study abroad? Sorting of Chinese students across British universities
