The MBA program that Chung graduated from is jointly taught by Tsinghua and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). For him, it represented the best of both worlds. "The teaching was carried out in English and so it was a good transition for me, as an overseas Chinese, to adapt to the Chinese teaching and learning environment," he says. "And, since the teaching materials are jointly developed by Tsinghua and MIT, they were up-to-date and world class."

　　Though tuition prices in China are generally less expensive than in the West - particularly for students not on a pricey foreign university exchange program - the business of recruiting more students from abroad has proved lucrative for Chinese universities. In 2002, China received between US$170 million and US$340 million from the tuition fees of foreign students, according to the Ministry of Education. The tuition for foreign students at Tsinghua University alone made up US$5.13 million. But while the international education industry in China is clearly growing, many students still find it less accessible than the more traditional study abroad programs in Western countries.

　　The language barrier is the most obvious. Even when classes are taught in English, Chinese skills are still required for daily life. "It's easy to go somewhere like a European country, where you can only speak English and get along fine," says American Brian Connors, who attended the Johns Hopkins program in 2001. "Though China is becoming more international, you can't get anything done without speaking some Chinese."

　　And even students who have extensively studied Chinese find earning a mainstream degree alongside regular Chinese students very challenging. "Even after a total of eight years studying Chinese - four in India and four in China - I have to pay 120 percent attention in class to fully understand only about 90 percent of the class content," says Ghosh.

　　Bob Aubrey, a professor with both Peking University's and Tsinghua's international MBA programs, runs an educational company called Metizo that has helped bring several foreign students to China for study and work over the last two years. Despite the growing number of foreign students in China, Aubrey says that the country has far from reached its full potential in the education sector. "For business school students, the lack of qualified teachers who can teach in English remains a big problem," he says. "English is the language of international business and until this is realized, the value of an MBA in China and that of one in the West will remain unequal."

　　Connors, who currently runs an English language and cultural exchange school in Beijing, says that despite having learned a lot from his experience at Nanjing, he also worries about whether his qualifications will be recognized back in the States. "[China is] a great place to be a student, but there are certain limitations to the current standards of education here," he says. "For example, the level of interaction between professors and students in China is less than students are used to in many other countries."