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The high price Chinese students pay for university in the US during the Covid-19 pandemic
- Chinese students keen to get an American education amid geopolitical tension and the spread of Delta must make a big investment – and that’s just the airfare
- US-bound students are reported to have a formed a line 1km long at Shanghai as restrictions on the number of flights keep prices high
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Chinese students have snapped up expensive airline tickets in a scramble to start the autumn semester on American campuses after the United States eased quarantine requirements.
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In the past, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students have headed to America before the new semester starts in September. However, a limited supply of airline seats amid the Covid-19 pandemic means students are paying abnormally high prices.
On Friday, the cheapest one-way ticket from Beijing or Shanghai to New York, Boston or other major US cities with two transfers cost nearly 20,000 yuan (US$3,000) departing on any date before September 1.
Flights with one transfer in Hong Kong cost up to 80,000 yuan, according to booking site Trip.com. The cheapest were at least twice the price of those at the same time of year before the pandemic.
Andrew Li, who will fly to the east coast of the US early next month for a master’s degree programme, said that when he started to search for tickets in late June, fares were 20,000-30,000 yuan.
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