Some 87 percent of Chinese who studied abroad in 2009 received financial support from their parents, China.com.cn, a government-run website, reported Sunday quoting a survey by education research company MyCOS.

The survey divided its interviewees into two categories: undergraduate students who graduated from China's top 211 universities in 2009 and those who did not.

According to the survey, 1.64 percent of undergraduate students graduating from China's top 211 universities in 2009 went abroad for study, 0.61 percentage points higher year on year.

Some 0.69 percent of undergraduate students from the other category also pursued overseas studies.

According to the survey, the majority of the students who studied abroad took economics and business management as their major.

The survey also showed 9 percent of those studying abroad received scholarships from the foreign institutions while 3 percent supported themselves through part-time jobs. One percent were funded by the Chinese government.

Chinese universities and colleges graduated 6.1 million students in 2009, according to statistics from the Ministry of Education.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2010)