Over the last four years there has been a dramatic explosion in the number of Chinese undergraduate students studying at U.S. universities and colleges. Between 2009 and 2010 alone there was an increase of over 17,000 Chinese undergraduates, more than the total number enrolled just three years earlier, according to figures released in November by the Institute for International Education. Even more remarkable is the almost six-fold growth in undergraduate numbers between 2006 and 2010.

The theoretical foundation for the current educational system in China may be traced to the "Decision on the Reform of the Educational Structure", a decree issued in 1985 by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which was formalized a year later by the National People's Congress with the ratification of the "Compulsory Education Law." The new law would serve as the basis for reform at all levels within China's system of education, while underscoring the leadership's commitment to basic education both as a legal and a moral imperative in congruence with the ideologies embodied by Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations, a set of reforms aimed at strengthening the areas of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. At the core of these reforms was the belief that in order to prepare the country for the 21st century, it was necessary to develop all sectors of education, the most vital of which included elementary and secondary education.

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