Objective To evaluate the delay of tuberculosis treatment in Chinese students. Methods CNKI, Web of Science, Wanfang Data, Pubmed, SinoMed, VIP, and The Cochrane Library were searched for the cross-sectional studies on the delayed rate of tuberculosis treatment in Chinese students from January 2000 to July 2022. Stata 17.0 was used for the meta-analysis. Results A total of 57 cross-sectional studies were included, including 67 105 subjects and 39 831 students with delayed treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. Meta-analysis showed that the delayed rate of tuberculosis treatment in the Chinese students was 47.8% (95%CI 47.6%-48.1%) (P<0.001). The results of subgroup analysis showed that the delayed rates of the male and female students were 50.0% and 50.7%, respectively; the delayed rates of the students who were in primary school and below, middle school, high school, and college and above were 43.2%, 46.1%, 46.1%, and 46.0%, respectively; the delayed rates of the students from the eastern, southeastern, central, southwestern, southern, and northern regions were 43.7%, 44.1%, 37.8%, 50.5%, 54.7%, and 50.5%, respectively; the delayed rates of the local and non-local students were 51.9% and 50.6%, respectively; the delayed rates of the students discovered by medical treatment or recommendation, health examination, referral, follow-up, and other methods were 46.3%, 44.4%, 50.7%, 53.6%, and 35.7%, respectively; the delayed rates of the students taking initial treatment and retreatment were 52.9% and 46.3%, respectively; the delayed rates of the students with negative and positive pulmonary tuberculosis were 46.0% and 52.4%, respectively; the delayed rates in the first, second, third, and fourth quarters were 41.6%, 37.5%, 34.7%, and 37.6%, respectively; the delayed rate of treatment published between 2000 and 2010 was not included due to the low quality and small number of relevant literatures, and the delay rates from 2011 to 2015 and from 2016 to 2021 were 46.9% and 44.4%, respectively; the delayed rates of the Han and minority groups were 77.4% and 54.9%, respectively. Conclusions The delayed rate of medical treatment of students with pulmonary tuberculosis in China has slightly decreased in recent 10 years, but the overall rate is still high. The delayed rate of tuberculosis treatment in Chinese students is affected by gender, region, household registration, education background, quarter, ethnicity, and other factors.