Chinese Companies Are Buying Up Cash-Strapped U.S. Colleges

  • Princeton-based choir college being sold for $40 million
  • Schools in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire taken over
China Moves on U.S. Schools
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Chinese companies are taking advantage of America’s financially strapped higher-education system to buy schools, and the latest deal for a classical music conservatory in Princeton, New Jersey, is striking chords of dissonance on campus.

Beijing Kaiwen Education Technology Co. agreed in February to pay $40 million for Westminster Choir College, an affiliate of Rider University that trains students for careers as singers, conductors and music teachers. The announcement came just weeks after the government-controlled Chinese company changed its name from Jiangsu Zhongtai Bridge Steel Structure Co.