Li Qi

Li Qi tells his story matter-of-factly -- as if he had grown up in average suburbia: 

"When I was 8 years old, my parents sent me away to circus school in hopes that I would have a better life," Li said. "The schedule of training and performing was grueling, and it allowed little time for schooling." By the time he turned 15, Li realized the only way for a real future was to run away.

While he was on a six-month Chinese circus tour of the United States, Li's parents arranged for a friend of a friend to meet him after a performance, and he defected.

It was not the life he had hoped for.

With no education, no English-language skills and no green card, Li spent the next two years working in a string of Chinese restaurants. He had nearly resigned himself to a life no better than the one he had left in China, when, one day, a restaurant patron asked him why he never pursued an education.

Li soon found himself sitting in a counselor's office at a Massachusetts private school where the patron, who has become Li's sponsor, enrolled him. At age 17, Li started his formal education.

Li spent the next three years making up for lost time: now an economics and world politics double-major at Hamilton, he works with professor Cheng Li to examine the economic and political impact of Chinese students who return home after study in the United States.

"Those students bring back the democratic ideas of free elections, free speech and freedom of religion," Li said. "We want to learn how returnees share those principles with other Chinese citizens."

By examining current Chinese books and newspapers and by conducting interviews with returnees, Li hopes to develop a better understanding of the motives, ambitions, challenges and opportunities for the growing numbers of these students. "They reflect an increased integration -- at commercial, intellectual and cultural levels -- between the U.S. and China," he said.

Like the subjects of his study, Li has first-hand evidence of the life-altering effects of education.

"I know what kind of future I want, and it's not a circus life," said Li, who plans to pursue a career in business and someday return to China. "I appreciate what this country has to offer, and I know what I have to give back."