Only 700 Americans are studying in China. Will the US lose a generation of experts?

When Sam Trizza got the news last April that he’d won a prestigious Boren Fellowship for Chinese-language study, he literally leaped for joy, throwing a fist in the air.

But as he read the congratulatory letter, he felt a wave of disappointment. The Boren Awards had decided not to fund study in his destination country: China. Going to China anyway would mean turning down a $30,000 fellowship.

“It was very frustrating,” he says.

Mr. Trizza’s dilemma is just one example of the hurdles confronting American youth who want to study in China.

The pandemic shut China’s doors and caused the number of U.S. university students here to plummet – from nearly 12,000 in 2019 to only 211 in 2022. U.S.-China tensions are keeping those numbers low, with only about 700 American students