Research On Decision-making Of High-school Students’Investment In Studying Abroad At Their Own Expense

Along with the rapid development of social economy and the arrival of knowledge-based economy in our country, investment in education has become a new hotspot for public investment. Coupled with the further deepening of globalization and internationalization of higher education, the range for people to invest has been extended to overseas. In recent years, the craze of studying abroad is continuously arising and the tendency of studying in younger age is more apparent in China. More and more parents spare no effort to send their children to study overseas. The number of Chinese international students increases at the speed of about20%every year, in which self-expense students account for90%above. Thus, nowadays studying abroad has become the dominant education from the elite one in early years. However, as a form of high-cost capital investment, it is worth noting that studying abroad can bring certain benefits and also hides a variety of uncertain risks. Therefore, the students and their families should rationally make the decision to study abroad according to their own circumstance.According to the theory of consumer’s decision-making process of purchase and the theory of planned behavior from social psychology, adopting the method combining the theoretical research and empirical research, this study builds the theoretical models of high-school students’ decision-making process of self-expense studying abroad and the main influence factors of the behavior, and has the corresponding theoretical analysis. On this basis, through investigating high-school students in Hubei province with a questionnaire, this paper does the corresponding empirical research and finally puts forward some countermeasures and Suggestions.Through the investigation and analysis, it comes to the conclusion that high-school students with different characteristics has significant individual difference in decision making of investment in studying abroad at their own expenses, mainly reflected in the only child, family residence and family background, parents’ education level and family income, etc. Through the analysis of the decision-making process, education is the fundamental problem from the studying motivation. Pursuing high-quality foreign education resources, enhancing professional competence and avoiding the pressure of the college entrance examination have become the major factors to stimulate demands of studying abroad. From the point of collecting relevant information, most of students and their families also have certain difficulty. From the point of influence factors in decision-making behavior, different factors vary. First of all, the perception of the abilities of implementing the decision is the main factor which is mainly based on the cognition of smoothly going abroad to study and achieve expected goal. Secondly, expected costs and benefits influence their decision to study abroad, but this behavior is not completely economic rational. It’s also affected by the social pressure, traditional concepts and so on. Finally, the attitude of studying abroad positively influences the decision-making behavior, but its academic achievement does not have a significant impact.Based on above research results, in order to help people who have the demand of studying abroad make decision rationally and promote education for studying abroad to develop in our country, this paper accordingly puts forward the countermeasures and Suggestions:firstly, the education reform should be optimized to increase the supply of high-quality education resources; Secondly, we should strengthen the construction of informatization and smooth channels to study abroad; Thirdly, the intermediary institutions for studying abroad should be standardized and the service standards should be improved; Fourthly, the decision-making ability should be improved and do academic and career planning.