China's richest people are likely to send their children abroad for education, with the United States and the United Kingdom as their first choices, according to a recent report on education by Hurun, the recognized authority when it comes to tracking the changing trends in China's entrepreneurial community.
The report, according to Xinhua, found that some 80 percent of the country's rich people have plans to send their children abroad, the highest ratio in the world.
Also, the report found that these rich people are most likely to send their children to the U.S. and the U.K., while other countries like Australia, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Singapore, France and Germany attract most of the rest.
Finally, the report said that the latest average age of the millionaires' children is 16 years old when they were sent abroad.
The publisher of the monthly magazine, Rupert Hoogewerf, also known as Hurun, observed that 10 years ago, Chinese rich people could only send their children to Canada and Australia because there were a large number of Chinese people already living there. Now, because the Chinese rich people have a much broader social network, he said "they can find trusted people anywhere in the world and can rest assured sending children to any country."
Hurun's the "Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey 2014" came from a poll of 400 Chinese parents who each had at least 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) in disposable income, according to China Daily.
For undergraduate study, completing it in the U.S. tops the list among China's richest parents, with the U.K. second and Australia third. For a university degree, U.K. is their first choice and the U.S. as second for their children.
Hoogewerf told China Daily: "We have been keeping a keen eye on overseas education as it indicates a trend in emigration. It is common practice for the rich to send their children overseas as a first step before they move to the country themselves when the children finish their education."
Also, education has long been considered a high priority in China. On average, the country's high-net-worth individuals spend 170,000 yuan (about $27,000), to educate each of their children. This was the third-highest area of their spending, after travel and luxury goods, according to IB Times.