“UCLA and Kansas only offered me academic scholarships.” Henry Bolton was quite resentful.

“Their approach is terrible, but it’s okay. I believe you’ll definitely find an ideal university. Your grades are so good, and you play basketball so well…”

Pierce rambled on for a while before leaving satisfied. Thinking about his current situation, Henry Bolton felt a faint sense of sadness.

Five years ago, when he was 13, he was invited to join the youth team of a semi-professional team in the domestic top-tier basketball league. But his father told him that once you enter the system, you’re trapped, and you can’t make any decisions about your career on your own.

Henry Bolton wanted to control his own future, so he didn’t join the Beijing youth team. Instead, he focused on his studies while working hard to improve his basketball skills.

Three years ago, due to the arrogance of the Basketball Association or perhaps other reasons, they rejected the invitation from the American Basketball Association for a youth basketball match. As a result, the game became an unofficial, civilian event.

At 15, while in his second year of high school in China, Henry Bolton was recommended by the Affiliated High School of Capital Normal University to participate in the China-US youth basketball match. Despite a miserable loss to a group of twelve- and thirteen-year-old kids, he performed decently. With his then 183 cm height, he grabbed 11 rebounds in 27 minutes and had a good jump shot, scoring 14 points, which caught the eye of the coach from Inglewood High School.

His family was quite wealthy at the time. His father, David Bolton, decisively gave up his iron rice bowl in the mid-1980s and went into business, making a name for himself in the seafood industry. Seeing his son noticed by an American coach, he once again made a decisive choice and sent Henry Bolton to Los Angeles to study in high school.

Who could have predicted that in 1993, the exchange rate of the US dollar to the RMB would soar from about 1:5.7 in the second half of the year to nearly 1:9? The price of imported seafood skyrocketed, and other import industries were hit even harder. Although exports went smoothly, the domestic basic industry was still underdeveloped and urgently needed foreign goods, causing domestic prices to soar. Economic development hit a bottleneck, national income growth slowed, and Henry Bolton’s father’s assets faced great difficulties.

Fortunately, Henry Bolton’s father was a decisive man. He abandoned the now much more expensive import market and entered the domestic seafood and freshwater fish markets, cutting his losses in time. However, his assets shrank significantly, and he barely managed to keep the business running. Although they were still considered wealthy in China, the annual expenses of tens of thousands of US dollars for tuition, living costs, and other fees made the family struggle. With less income and fewer US dollars exchanged from RMB, the difficulty more than doubled.

Henry Bolton was very sensible and tried to minimize his personal expenses. But for international students, not only is tuition more expensive, but accommodation, health insurance, and other costs are all higher than for local Americans. Compared to California locals, Henry Bolton had to pay about three times the tuition.

It was only after coming to the US that Henry Bolton realized Americans like international students because they use them to increase school and local government revenue and provide high benefits for local students. Unlike some people who pay to bring in a bunch of foreign trash, or even force female students to form study groups with them.

Inglewood High School is one of the best private high schools in the US, ranked 5th in California and 41st nationwide. The tuition is expensive. Even though Henry Bolton earned a $3,000 annual high school basketball scholarship thanks to his good performance in the California league, compared to the $13,000 annual tuition for international students, it was just a drop in the bucket.

But the family could still afford high school. Now, two years have passed, and high school is about to end.

Henry Bolton had no problem with exams. He took the SAT in January last year, and as a senior, he scored an impressive 1316. The average score for that test was 876. With this score, he could meet the admission requirements for the best universities in the US and had no problem getting into a top-tier university.

As for basketball, his high school performance was not just good—it was excellent. He was one of the best small forwards in the California high school league. In the just-concluded senior season, he and Pierce helped Inglewood High School win the California championship, and many people in California had heard his name.

But recently, Henry Bolton attended interviews at several universities. Among them, UCLA in California was willing to offer an academic scholarship but not a basketball scholarship—not even a partial one. They treated him as a regular student applying to join the university basketball club, without even the chance to compete for a partial scholarship. The University of Southern California was willing to offer a partial basketball scholarship, but not a full one, and even that depended on whether he could make the varsity team… Most universities in California and nearby Arizona were only willing to offer academic scholarships, and at most, a partial basketball scholarship.

That’s a huge difference. With a basketball scholarship, as long as you don’t spend recklessly, at least your living expenses for a year are covered, which would greatly ease the burden on the family.