Meteoric Rise of China as a Host Country for Studies: Exploring the Choice of International Students' Perspectives

The number of countries engaged in providing international education has grown consistently over the years. Traditionally, European countries and the US have been regarded as the only dominant destinations for overseas students. However, recent studies indicated that several new countries have emerged as study destinations. China, one of them, is on the rise in hosting international students. Through a systematic document analysis method, this paper sought to figure out the trend and primary reasons why international students choose China for their study destination. Long-time considered the world's largest sending country, China counts today among the top largest welcoming countries worldwide. In contrast to the recent studies conducted in some reputed higher education institutions in China claiming Chinese universities' reputation as the most pulling factor, this study reveals that, apart from other non-negligible factors, economic reason remains the major pulling factor of international students.