Banking on China: University of California’s China Collaborations Under the Spotlight

A student walks toward Royce Hall on the campus of University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, Calif. on March 11, 2020. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

In the past decade, the University of California (UC) system faced a sticky situation.

Staring down the barrel of precipitous cuts in state funding, UC needed to find benefactors to make up for the shortfall. It found its savior in the form of Chinese students who were willing to fork out around three times as much tuition as Californian residents to attend one of the system’s 10 campuses, which include some of the most prestigious public universities in the country.