Students from China pose for photos after graduating from a business studies course at the University of Sydney in October 2017. (Photo by William West/For China Daily)
The number of Chinese students studying abroad reached 662,100 in 2018, up 8.83 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Education said on Wednesday.
Most of the students funded their studies by themselves, accounting for 90 percent of the total and only 65,800 were sponsored by public funding, the ministry said.
The number of overseas students returning home after graduation totaled 519,400 in 2018, up 8 percent from the previous year, the ministry said.
A total of 5.86 million Chinese studied abroad from 1978 to the end of 2018, according to the ministry. More than 4.32 million completed their studies, and more than 3.65 million chose to return to China after completing their studies, it said.
