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. And a month later, three student members of the University of Virginia soccer club were shot dead on the bus carrying their 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.”
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