A report on trends in education in the year ahead finds that 26.8 percent of Chinese students who plan to study abroad prefer US schools because of their educational quality. Zhang Yang / for China Daily

Statistics show that last year, most Chinese students studying abroad who finished their studies chose to return home to pursue their career goals. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Thursday:

The backflow of overseas students, on the one hand, should be able to contribute more intellectual resources to China. On the other hand, it also indicates that against the backdrop of globalization and industrialization of higher education, students who pursue overseas education are no longer rare. They too have to take part in the tight competition for jobs and some have lost their elite status in the eyes of many.

In 2007, among all Chinese students who studied abroad (over 144,000), about 44,000 returned home after they finished their studies. However, at least 400,000 of the about 523,700 overseas students who graduated by 2015 have returned to China.

The fact that not all Chinese graduates can guarantee a decent job does not necessarily mean overseas higher education is not worth pursuing. Many Chinese students are still inclined to apply for overseas universities for further education, because they believe that studying abroad is a worthwhile investment that will benefit them greatly in the near future.

Apart from the unbalanced allocation of quality educational resources, students' higher expectations of college education as a springboard for their future have also fueled the studying-abroad fervor in the country. They pursue not only good jobs and decent salaries after graduation, but also opportunities to improve their English and way of thinking, as well as expanding their academic horizons while in college.

In this sense, overseas education's attraction to Chinese students should prompt the country to make concrete efforts to expedite education reform.