August 31, 2009

A Canadian Company Sells 'Mass and Class' Education in China

How a private purveyor may represent the future of Western higher education in a vast new market

In China, One Company Sells Both 'Mass and Class' Education 1

Pouya Dianat for The Chronicle

Mavis Xin Zhang works the front desk at an Alabama motel as part of her international internship in hospitality arranged by CIBT Education Group. The $40-a-night motel does not provide the kind of food service she had studied: "They only have continental breakfast."

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close In China, One Company Sells Both 'Mass and Class' Education 1

Pouya Dianat for The Chronicle

Mavis Xin Zhang works the front desk at an Alabama motel as part of her international internship in hospitality arranged by CIBT Education Group. The $40-a-night motel does not provide the kind of food service she had studied: "They only have continental breakfast."

By Goldie Blumenstyk

Beijing

When Western colleges talk about the vast market potential of China, with its burgeoning middle class and millions of young people who can't be accommodated by the universities and colleges here, they have students like Chris Dong and Mavis Xin Zhang in mind.

Mr. Dong, fresh out of high school, is an electronics hobbyist and aspiring computer engineer who has dreamed of attending college in the United States since he was 12. The son of an engineer, he wants the flexibility of an

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