Second-tier cities look to attract more foreign students with scholarships, work experience options

Even as a majority of foreign MBA students flock to big brand business schools in the nation's economic hubs, there are those that are taking the route less traveled.

For Simon Roberto, an IMBA student at Chongqing University, studying in a second-tier city like Chongqing is a chance to grab a front row seat to learn more about one of China's fastest developing cities.

"What attracts me most is the fast development of China's second-tier cities like Chongqing. And if you want to succeed here, you have to understand it well and immerse yourself here," the 31-year-old German says.

He says much like the locations in which they are housed, IMBA programs in second-tier cities are developing at breakneck speeds.

The Economics and Business Administration School of Chongqing University first started offering the IMBA program in 2010 and has since seen dozens of students pass through its doors, despite being in a lesser-known location.

"Through the development and increasing popularity of Chongqing city and our IMBA program, it is expected that by 2015, we will have about 150 foreign students enrolled in our IMBA program," says Liu Xing, the dean of Economics and Business Administration School of Chongqing University.

Currently, there are 50 international students enrolled in the program.

It is the relatively removed location of second-tier IMBA programs that gives students unique opportunities, Roberto says.

"Because there are far fewer foreign students like me studying here than in the first-tier cities, we enjoy more opportunities and resources to develop our talents," he says.

"I really enjoy the multicultural environment here. It's like a small United Nations."

However, to cultivate a first-class IMBA program, Chongqing University still has a long way to go.

Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a private, nonprofit policy-research body, says currently second-tier city universities still lack favorable conditions for development of IMBA programs.

"Second-tier cities are not as attractive to the foreign students and professors as first-tier cities, though they are developing very fast," Xiong says. "What's more, be it in employment opportunities or education facilities, second-tier cities' universities still lag first-tier cities," he says.

Feng Rende, the director of the MBA education center of Chongqing Technology and Business University, echoes the lack of reputation to attract students as the biggest deterrent for the development of IMBA programs in second-tier cities.

"We planned to launch the IMBA program last year but only one student came to apply," Feng says. "But we are confident that with fast development of our MBA programs we can attract enough students to launch the program by 2018."

Efforts are also being made by the government to attract enough students so that the programs can be launched.

To bridge the gap, Chongqing University in cooperation with the Chongqing municipal government is offering incentives to attract foreign students to the IMBA programs. Notable among them is the over 100,000-yuan ($15,800, 11,950 euros) scholarship, which covers most of the expenses required to study in the 2-year program.

Primarily geared at foreign countries such as the United States, the school has made big efforts to attract first-class scholars to participate in education exchange activities. So far, there are 15 professors in the IMBA program with nine of them foreigners.

In addition to foreign professors and financial incentives, the school has also began talking with several multinational companies building their China roots in Chongqing, like Hewlett-Packard, to offer work experience for both foreign and domestic students.

"We aim to foster business elites with international perspectives and local insights. So we attach great importance to the cultivation of students' practical experience here," says Yang Jun, the director of the department of foreign affairs in the Economics and Business Administration School of Chongqing University.

While first-tier cities may attract more students, when it comes to job opportunities there are more students eyeing developing cities.

Bernard Lam, 28, who currently studies an IMBA program at Tsinghua University, said second-tier cities like Chongqing offer more job opportunities than the overfilled markets in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing.

"Several years ago, I would definitely have choosen to work in the first-tier cities like Beijing, since there are more opportunities there. But now the second-tier cities like Chongqing offer equally competitive opportunities for overseas students like us," the Hong-Kong native says.

"Even if I study in a first-tier city, there are equal if not more jobs to be found by going to developing locations."

Contact the writer at huhaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn