A comparative analysis of the impact of higher education internationalization on the employment competitiveness of graduates in China and the United States

Against the backdrop of the intertwined trends of economic globalization and de-globalization, the internationalization of higher education has emerged as a key factor reshaping the global talent market landscape and influencing the employment competitiveness of graduates. As core representatives in the global higher education sector, China and the United States exhibit fundamental differences in their internationalization development paths, talent cultivation logics, and market adaptation models. These differences directly lead to distinct characteristics between graduates of the two countries in terms of employment capability composition, international market adaptability, and cross-cultural work competence. Based on human capital theory and global competence theory, this paper adopts literature research and comparative analysis methods to systematically examine the divergent impacts of higher education internationalization on the employment competitiveness of graduates in China and the United States from four dimensions: philosophy, model, effect, and root cause. The study refines the core dimensions of employment competitiveness, and combined with scholars' survey data and case studies, it finds that China's higher education internationalization is mainly policy-driven, with a focus on knowledge imparting and uneven resource distribution. It significantly enhances graduates' professional hard power, but has obvious shortcomings in cultivating soft skills such as cross-cultural practice and critical thinking. In contrast, the United States is market demand-oriented, emphasizing capacity building and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Through a well-established system, it achieves the simultaneous improvement of graduates' hard and soft power, with remarkable effects in internship and cross-cultural training mechanisms. The root causes of these differences lie in the divergent adaptation logics of the two countries' educational traditions, institutional environments, and labor market structures. By analyzing these differences and their internal mechanisms, this paper provides targeted references for China's higher education internationalization to shift from scale expansion to quality improvement and build a talent cultivation system adapted to the international market. It also offers practical insights for relevant interdisciplinary research and tripartite collaborative education.