On February 13, a 43-year-old man entered the campus of Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing, shot and killed three students and seriously injured five others, including two Chinese students. This new killing came after the October 2022 assassination of a University of Arizona teacher by a former student. A month later, three student members of the University of Virginia soccer club were shot dead on the bus carrying the entire team, recalls the specialized information site Inside Higher Education.
“In recent years, fears about gun violence and personal safety have outweighed any reservations about pursuing an education in the United States.”
And while 25% of students from Latin America and 32% of European students say they are concerned about violence, more than 40% of students of Asian origin – the majority of whom come from China – constitute the largest contingent of foreign students present in the country.
But that could soon change, warns the news site: enrollment of Chinese students fell 9% for the year 2021-2022, after a drop of 15% in 2020-2021. According to Jenny Lee, an educational policy specialist at the University of Arizona, several factors play a role in the relative disaffection of these students. In particular the outbreak of anti-Asian racism caused by the pandemic and the difficulties in obtaining a visa, increased by the deterioration of diplomatic relations between the United States and China. Yet the presence of firearms on American campuses remains at the forefront of the fears they express.
A concern to be linked, according to her, with the scarcity of firearms in China and other Asian countries. “In Asia, you hardly ever see guns. The police themselves, in many Asian countries, do not wear them.”
While American universities remain the top destination for international students in the world, with nearly 1 million enrollments from abroad in 2022, they now face strong competition, particularly from British and Canadian establishments. Enrollment of international students at Canadian institutions thus increased by 24% in 2022 compared to the previous year.
“There are several reasons for this, but one of them is that Canada, an English-speaking country with world-class universities, is known to be a safe place,” comments Jenny Lee. In fact, point out Inside Higher Education according to data from the University of Washington, the rate of gun death in the United States is now eight times higher than in Canada – and almost a hundred times higher than in the United Kingdom.
