In 2015 some 500,000 Chinese students headed abroad, with some 300,000 heading to the USA, still the number one destination (46% in 2016), followed by the UK (31%), Australia (20%), Canada (18%). Asian destinations are slowly coming up.
The USA has around one million foreign students, one third coming from China.
Other European countries like Germany and France attract each well under 10% of them.
Most preferred majors are business (27%), engineering (17%) and liberal arts (16%).
Source: China Daily.

Recently the vast majority of the students is returning to China. Add to those the 120 million overseas tourist trips (2015) and one can wonder about the impact on China: in how far do they bring back “foreign influences” such as wondering about the Chinese Great Firewall?