The International Attractiveness of US Universities

Seth Roberts, a psychology professor at Berkeley, bumped into a small group of first year students from Beijing. He asked a few questions and got some interesting answers, such as why they wanted to study in the US (Seth's Blog):

But they preferred an American college to a Chinese one for two main reasons: 1. They can choose whatever major they want. At Chinese universities students are often forced into a major they don’t want if their scores are high enough to get into a prestigious university but not high enough to get into the major they want at that university. 2. They believe that if they graduate from an American university they will have more opportunities. Where did they get the idea of coming to Berkeley? I asked. Online, they said. Their English was really good.