Huang Wei-wen of Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, who has made a study of the STGA, notes that in the early days, students returning from Taiwan had very difficult lives. It wasn't until the 1980s that they started to make an impression in Malaysia's Chinese community.
然而，別看眼前風光興旺，以砂拉越留台同學會為碩士論文的淡江大學東南亞研究所黃偉雯指出，留台人早年的命運其實十分乖舛，一直到 1980 年代，留台人才開始在馬華社會中立穩腳跟。