Two years ago, Lobsang Chotso was standing on a brightly lit street in Shanghai, hearing the noise of car horns and traffic, and hating the thought of going home.

Today, she is sitting at the door of her home in Tibet, with only the sound of wind echoing in the mountain. Looking at a newly born yak and a sky full of stars, she feels she has made peace with a journey that started 13 years ago.

In 2008, at the age of 13, Lobsang left Qamdo district (now Qamdo city) of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and journeyed 3,000 kilometers away to attend middle school in Shanghai, later going to high school in neighboring Zhejiang province and returning to Shanghai for university. For 11 years, she made her home in these vast eastern metropolises, rarely seeing her family apart from during a few visits home.

In 1985, China established its “interior schooling (内地班)” program, which allocated special funds to set up schools or “ethnic classes” for top-performing Tibetan students in 17 more economically developed regions of the country and cover the cost of their tuition, travel expenses, and room and board. Concluding that the lack of educated talent was the main reason for Tibet’s lagging economy, the program welcomed 1,300 Tibetan primary school graduates in its first year.

“Tibetan people regard studying outside of Tibet as an honor, or at least better than going to a middle school in Tibet,” says Lobsang. In her hometown, families would hold an all-day celebration when their children were accepted into the government program—preparing khata, the traditional ceremonial scarf in Tibetan Buddhism, and red envelopes stuffed with money inside for the guests.

At 11, Lobsang scored top of her whole district in the primary school graduation exam, which gave her the chance to attend middle school in Shanghai. Hundreds of students in Qamdo qualified that year, including Lobsang’s brother, but her family kept him at home because they believed a son should stay closer to the family.