US companies benefit from Chinese students

Chinese students studying at universities in the United States bring the country tuition fees as well as other economic benefits.

Two Chicago companies -- Fit In Stand Out and Mandarin Campus -- on Tuesday set out to address the needs of Chinese students studying at US universities.

Though the two new companies serve Chinese students in different ways, they have the same objective of striking gold by helping Chinese students adjust to the life and explore future careers in America.

It is not strange for the US companies to focus their attention on Chinese students studying in the US given the fact that over 65,000 Chinese-speaking students will be on US Midwest campuses this fall.

Chicago-based Mandarin Communications Group (MCG) found in a survey that besides tuition fees, 77 percent of the Chinese students plan to visit Chicago at least once during the school year, which may create annual economic activity of over $1.5 billion in the region.

Parents and relatives of the Chinese students are also target consumers. The MCG survey showed that flights between the US and China for the Chinese students as well as their parents have increased, with a reported 81 percent of the students flying back to China once a year and 25 percent having their parents visit them annually.

This is only a glimpse of Chinese student studying in the US Midwest.

Nationwide, Chinese students studying at US universities have exceeded 200,000.