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China STEM students increasingly choose Singapore as US options tighten
A state-backed Singapore scholarship, the SM2 program, fully funds undergrad study in science and engineering and requires a six-year work commitment after graduation.
South China Morning Post reports that some of China’s top science and technology students are shifting toward Singapore as their traditional Western study routes become harder, amid US China tech competition and tighter immigration policies in major destinations including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The outlet points to Singapore’s Senior Middle 2, or SM2, scholarship program, a state-backed initiative launched in 1997 as a joint effort between China and Singapore’s education ministries.
Under SM2, the Singapore government recruits high-achieving second-year high school students from China and provides fully funded undergraduate education in science and engineering, plus living allowances, with recipients required to work in Singapore for six years after graduation.
The report also notes Singapore previously ran an earlier Senior Middle 1, or SM1, program that recruited about 300 mainland Chinese secondary students each year to attend high school and junior college in the city state.