The more tradition Chinese students who have been coming here since the 1980s (and don’t have very rich parents) mostly pick STEM majors. On graduating, they would rather work for Google in Mountain View than Tencent in Shenzhen.
"U.S. GDP could top 4% in 2nd quarter, economists say"
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-gdp-could-top-4-in-2nd-...
"Baotou in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region revised its estimated fiscal revenue in 2017 lower by nearly 50% in an annual work report"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-data/anothe...
"China fake data mask economic rebound"
https://www.ft.com/content/a9889330-f51c-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1...
Also weighing heavily on people are family and cultural conflict issues. But anecdotally I can say that the majority of Chinese students don’t want to stay in the US for a variety of reasons; and that many feel their prospects are at least as good in China as the US.
They’re not stupid, they look at China and see an economy growing at 6-9% a year while the US is stuck at 1-2% and they know where the growth is for the medium-term. They also see a mature American economy that can be tough to crack even for native white citizens, so its not hard to see how their chances of long-term success are much higher in China than in the US.