It can be a touchy subject: China is suspected of flooding American colleges with students to steal technology. They're taking engineering, aeronautics, astronautics, quantum mechanics and other fields that have direct connections to national security.
FBI security analyst Frank Figliuzzi says it's a real concern.
"We know that the Chinese have a shopping list of intelligence and technology that they target every year."
Figliuzzi recalls one such student at Duke University.
"Was he handled, approached, compromised, recruited, and subsidized when he took it back to China? My theory says yes."
Experts say Washington needs to come up with rules for such students, because professors and universities can't be counted on to protect sensitive information.
China is said to be outpacing the U.S., partly by sending large numbers of its top students to American colleges.