How are US and Chinese universities keeping partnerships alive amidst political tensions?

Welcome! I write this introduction shortly after the 24^th Back to School Summit held in New York. Broad themes that I picked up from the summit were a desire for collaboration, AI transparency and the continued maturation of skills development (keep an eye out for future editions of the mag that will do into the summit further).

In the spirit of the US and collaboration, this week we feature a piece on the surprising partnerships being formed between American and Chinese universities, despite political tensions. We also explore how the MBA gender pay gap can be addressed.

Stay insightful,

Anton John Crace, Editor-in-Chief, QS Insights Magazine, QS Quacquarelli Symonds

Partners in Rivalry

By Gauri Kohli

In Brief

• Despite escalating US-China rivalry, joint venture universities and transnational education collaborations demonstrate a resilient, pragmatic approach to academic exchange.
• Both nations leverage these ventures for strategic gains. China imports high-quality pedagogy and retains top talent, while the US recruits students, deepens expertise, and maintains crucial soft diplomacy channels and global research networks.
• These institutions function as vital "contact zones" and "living laboratories", blending American pedagogical innovation with Chinese scale and strategic support. Their sustainable success hinges on shared governance and mutual benefits.

Even as Washington and Beijing compete over trade, technology, and security, American and Chinese universities are finding ways to keep the doors of collaboration open through joint venture universities (JVUs) and transnational education partnerships.

These include Duke Kunshan University, set up by Duke University and Wuhan University; and New York University (NYU) Shanghai, jointly established by New York University and East China Normal University, which are navigating the political pressure due to calculated and pragmatic strategies by both sides.

Other examples of Sino-US collaboration are Wenzhou-Kean University and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

Decades of Academic Diplomacy

Chinese and US universities have an enormous responsibility in the midst of Sino-US tensions, says a 2021 paper titled ‘Sino-US Relations: Universities Entering the Age of Strategic Competition,’ by the UK-based Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE).

Academic cooperation between the US and China began in the late 1970s, leading to a major increase in exchanges that continued for decades. A vibrant period of exchange coincided with major reforms in Chinese higher education and a surge in US university tuition. As a result, international students, especially from China, became a vital source of revenue for many American institutions and for research in the US.

As economic ties strengthened over the following decades, cooperation grew, though not without occasional tensions. “In the late 1990s and early 2000s, an intellectual renaissance in academic exchange coincided with extensive reforms in Chinese higher education, including its mass expansion and the rise of Sino-foreign campuses,” says the CGHE paper.

While tuition fees at Ivy League Universities surged by 1,400 percent from 1980 to 2020, making them less accessible, international students, especially from China, became a vital source of revenue. This mutual need for collaboration sparked a new era of joint ventures, officially sanctioned by China’s 2003 Law on Sino-foreign Cooperation in the Running of Educational Institutions, opening the door for new US-China campuses.

While these campuses have more reporting requirements in China, they have maintained enough autonomy to secure US degree accreditation.

“Solutions to sustainable development goals require close Sino-US cooperation, especially in higher education,” says the CGHE paper.

Pragmatism Over Politics

Amid a broader geopolitical scenario where politicians in both countries discuss decoupling, the sustained success of academic collaborations shows a deeper, practical arrangement.

Dr Denis Simon, former Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University and an expert on US-China higher education, explains that since the early 2000s, China’s Ministry of Education (MoE) has viewed joint cooperation in running schools as a controlled mechanism to import high-quality curricula, pedagogy and research capacity without ceding full regulatory authority.

This policy framework, most recently updated between 2019 and 2024, signals Beijing’s continued commitment to this model even as the political environment hardens.

For their part, American universities are not simply pursuing financial gain. Dr Simon highlights their core mission to recruit and educate top Chinese talent, deepen China expertise across various disciplines, promote faculty collaboration and sustain globally distributed research networks.

“The very presence of a US Secretary of State at NYU Shanghai in 2024 underscored the soft diplomacy value of these institutions, even during periods of strained relations,” Dr Simon tells QS Insights Magazine, referring to US top diplomat Antony Blinken’s campus visit in April last year.

Dr Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, agrees, describing the collaboration as a “dual logic” where soft diplomacy and pragmatic necessity are fused.

He argues that these academic exchanges preserve crucial channels of dialogue, help cultural understanding and mitigate the risk of misperception. The latest approvals from China’s MoE, which saw 23 new Sino-US partnerships announced in May this year - an increase from the previous year - serve as tangible evidence of this continued governmental support.

According to the British Council, China’s MoE has recently approved a significant batch of new transnational education partnerships, the first since 2022. This brings the total to 113 new ventures, including 69 joint programmes and 44 joint institutes. Among foreign partners, the US leads with 23 partnerships, followed by Russia (13) and the UK (11).

Local governments in China, such as those in Kunshan, Suzhou and Shanghai, are also key drivers of this collaboration. They view these universities as essential anchors for high-skilled ecosystems, investing significant resources in land, operating support, and political sponsorship.

“For these cities, the universities are a visible signal of ‘global city’ status and a strategic investment in human-capital and economic development,” says Dr Simon. The political utility of these campuses, as both Dr Simon and Dr Wang suggest, helps them function as rare US-China “contact zones” that serve pressing domestic needs on both sides.

“Joint research projects, shared resources and the training of young scholars generate tangible benefits in terms of scientific output, innovation, and global knowledge production,” notes Dr Wang.

He points out that future cooperation will likely be “more selective and regulated.” However, extensive collaboration continues in areas of common global interest such as public health, climate change, the humanities and basic science between the two countries.

One of the primary motivations for American universities is to attract top-tier Chinese students who complete their undergraduate studies at a joint venture campus and then pursue a graduate degree in the US, which greatly benefits American faculty, according to Dr David Zweig. A Professor Emeritus at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and an expert on Chinese politics, political economy and foreign relations, says, he adds: “From China’s perspective, this arrangement addresses a key national security concern by providing undergraduate students with a Western-style education without them ever having to leave the country.”

He clarifies that this benefit is limited to undergraduate training, as many of these students will still proceed to graduate studies overseas.

Balancing Academic Freedom and Governance

The success of these institutions hinges on a delicate balance between attracting top international faculty and students and operating within China’s legal and political framework. “At times, JVUs appear as compliance-heavy but remain very resilient ‘islands of cooperation’. They are designed to keep operating through rivalry, precisely because they serve local development and national talent goals,” says Dr Simon.

He notes that retention impact is real. “High-achieving Chinese undergraduates increasingly choose JVUs, then proceed to elite global graduate programs reducing overseas undergraduate outflows while preserving international mobility later.”

Gauri Kohli specialises in writing and reporting on higher education news, including analysis on higher education trends, policies and the edtech sector. Her writing focuses on international education, study abroad, student recruitment trends and policies, with focus on India as a market. She has also covered workplace and hiring trends, corporate practices, work-life features, startup trends and developments, real estate for leading publications and media houses in India and abroad for the last 18 years, including Hindustan Times, a leading national daily newspaper in India.

Investigating the Gender Gap in Post-MBA Leadership

By Laura Lightfinch and Dr Michelle Wieser

In Brief

• Post-MBA, women still encounter a pervasive glass ceiling, facing a growing gender pay gap, fewer promotions and limited access to leadership roles, despite the clear benefits of their advanced education.
• This "broken rung" sees the gender pay gap widen to 17% after five years, with women receiving nearly one fewer promotion, managing half as many staff, and having significantly less budget oversight than men.
• Companies must actively nurture women's career growth beyond initial hiring by implementing clear development plans and fostering an inclusive ecosystem. C-suite leaders are crucial advocates for diverse talent, ensuring equitable progression and retention.

Despite significant benefits to studying an MBA, women and minority graduates continue to face a ceiling when it comes to pay, opportunities and access to leadership positions, according to a 2025 report by the US-based Forté Foundation.

The report reveals that post-MBA, women – especially those from underrepresented minority groups– have a greater distance from their copmany’s CEO, earn fewer promotions, manage fewer people and hold smaller budgets in addition to a growing gender pay gap.

An MBA Will Boost Salary, But the Gender Pay Gap Will Grow

According to Forté’s latest MBA Outcomes Findings released in 2025, women with an MBA see a salary increase of 55-65 percent within five years of graduation. However, the gender pay gap grows from the first post-MBA job (6 percent) to their current role (17 percent).

“The value of the MBA is not in question,” Forté Foundation CEO Elissa Sangster affirms. “It really does help students advance their careers, but we are tracking several key indicators that impact women’s progress into leadership and underpin this expanding salary gap.”

Of the more than 1,000 participants surveyed, women reported a greater distance from the CEO than their male counterparts, 4.3 levels on average for women, compared to 3.8 to men.

While both genders appear to share a relatively similar distance from their CEO, the gap is deceptive. Women with the same credentials, education and experience still have not risen as high as men.

The small CEO distance gap also hides deeper chasms in day-to-day operations. On average, women received roughly one fewer promotion than men; 1.4 promotions compared to 2.3 for their male counterparts.

Women managed almost half as many staff as well, at 1.6 to 3. They also have significantly less budget oversight, particularly at the high end where twice as many men (12 percent) as women (6 percent) oversee a budget of USD $50M or more.

Connecting the dots between the data and the real stories of women MBAs who work with Forté, Sangster sees a clear narrative: “Many women are facing challenges to their growth early on. If you don’t get to the managerial rung by a certain time, you’re in a trajectory that looks very different than those who have pushed forward early.

“Our data shows that men are beginning to gain responsibility, overcome challenges and enter decision-making roles earlier, leading them closer to the CEO with each promotion.”

McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report gave weight to the 'broken rung' as a significant barrier to women’s advancement, stating that “men significantly outnumber women at the managerial level, making it near impossible for companies to support sustained progress at more senior levels”.

However, Sangster feels that the line between these differing paths to progression and the resulting salary gap isn’t always clear to companies working to grow diversity in leadership. Instead, she believes that “companies are focused on top-level balances like everyone in the same role receiving the same pay”.

What isn’t being talked about, however, is “how long it takes women to make that same pay bracket and the challenges they face to progress to the same level. Are hiring managers quantifying those different journeys in measurable ways?”.

Dr Monika Nangia, Director of Student & Academic Services at Durham University in England has travelled across the UK interviewing women leaders in higher education to understand the challenges faced on the path to leadership.

“There is a wealth of data pointing to persistent systemic inequity, but what lies behind the statistics are women who have made several sacrifices to gain a seat at the table. It doesn’t come easy. There is a lot of code switching, isolation and imposter syndrome,” says Dr Nangia.

“When I talk to women leaders, they have had to battle twice as hard to get to the top. Strength and resilience are something they come with, but it takes a toll.”

Lack of Advancement Opportunities Push Women to Leave

Of the women surveyed in Forté’s MBA Outcomes Findings, 53 percent say there is no process or plan for formal career development or advancement at their workplace.

Women are more likely to leave their company in order to progress with 44 percent citing a lack of advancement opportunities as the primary reason to leave a job.

For Divya Chaurasia, leaving her job to pursue an MBA felt like the only way to progress. She became one of the first people from her hometown in India to study an MBA abroad and says that mentorship was vital in making this decision.

“It was the first time that a manager had been invested in my growth and was interested in what I wanted to do beyond the work they needed me for. They took my ambitions seriously and advised that I left to study an MBA.” Says Chaurasia

A new MBA graduate from London Business School, Chaurasia says: “Being seen and heard can be a very overlooked idea, but it’s a significant part of providing equal opportunities. When you feel heard and supported, your confidence grows.”

Yet, only 36 percent of women surveyed for the MBA Outcomes Findings list confidence as an attribute contributing to their professional success.

“It’s a tragedy that companies aren’t seeing that as a missed opportunity,” Sangster tells QS Insights Magazine. “From an organisational standpoint, what are you doing to showcase the career options and progression for your talent?

“Are you being methodical and thoughtful about how you grow that talent once you’ve invested the money and time to recruit them? How do you map that journey out for them so you can retain them because many of the MBA graduates participating in this study are concerned about that.”

Laura Lightfinch is Strategic Content Manager at QS and works to amplify QS data and insights and thought leadership in the global higher education sector. Laura also co-leads the QS LGBTQ+ Network, raising awareness of the experiences of the community and ensuring they are supported in the workplace.

Dr Michelle Wieser collaborates with business school leaders to align curriculum with market needs, strengthen international enrolment, and strengthen employability of students. A former business school dean and career services professional, she is passionate about the role of education at all levels in transforming the careers and lives of learners.