Chinese students are the single largest group of international students in the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and several other countries.

Data released by the Chinese Ministry of Education shows that the number of Chinese students studying abroad has reached more than 500,000.

More Chinese students will study abroad in 2016 than in 2015, and this is a trend that is set to continue for years to come, said Li Weiping, Deputy Secretary-General of the International Education Association of Shanghai.

Quite a few nations have relaxed their visa policies to attract more international students. For instance, Australia has created a new procedure to streamline the visa application process in the hope that international students in Australia will increase from the roughly 500,000 there are today to 1 million by 2025.

The majority of foreign universities do not have strict admissions requirements; instead, they adopts higher standards for graduation, which means that students have to meet standards for language proficiency and academic performance, according to Li Rongyu, Vice-President of the University of Canberra. 

A craze for studying abroad has led to fierce competition among international applicants at many universities. The latest data shows that the admission rate for Ivy League universities hit a record low in 2016.

The decreased admission rate has to do with a surge in applicants, experts say. Therefore, elite U.S. universities can continuously raise their admissions requirements.