Rural Ohio school districts look to cash in on Chinese students seeking American education

As many as 200 Chinese students could attend classes in southeastern Ohio high schools in the next school year under a plan that would pay local districts $10,000 in tuition per school year per student by the students’ families in China, and Ohio families hosting the students would be paid $400 to $500 a month, Mary Beth Lane reports for the The Columbus Dispatch. "The plan would distribute the 11th and 12th graders from China among public high schools in districts across Pike, Scioto, Jackson and Ross counties" in the southern part of the state, where the districts are generally among the poorest in the state.

Neil Leist, superintendent of one school district that has 900 students and receives about $7,300 per student per year in combined state and local aid, told Lane, “That would be a pretty good shot in the arm” for the southeastern Ohio economy, long troubled and recently hurt by layoffs in coal and manufacturing.

"William Brustein, vice provost for global strategies and international affairs, said the phenomenal growth in China’s professional middle and upper classes, plus the limit of one child per family, have led parents to send their children to the United States for college undergraduate and advanced degrees, especially in engineering and business," Lane writes. "The parents believe that sending their children to high school in the United States, where they can perfect their English and learn the culture while also polishing creative and critical-thinking skills, gives them a competitive edge for U.S. college admission over Chinese students who attended high school in China." (Read more)