Timeline

1950: China sends 25 college graduates to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. They are the first Chinese to study overseas since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

1950-65: China sends 10,689 students to 29 countries, with about 80 percent traveling to the Soviet Union.

1966-72: China's overseas study program is temporarily suspended as a result of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

1973: The overseas study program restarts.

1978: The Reform and Openingup Policy is adopted, and 860 people-most sponsored by the government-travel overseas to study.

1981: The Test of English as a Foreign Language is held in China for the first time. More than 600 candidates take the exam in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

1984: China begins allowing self-financing students to study overseas, and most have to find part-time work to pay tuition fees.

1993: Beijing New Oriental School is established. It offers intensive training for students planning to go abroad via TOEFL and Graduate Record Examinations.

2018: Self-funded students account for almost 90 percent of those going overseas to study.