Foreign students in US dip, but Indians buck the trend

NEW DELHI: Over 190,000 students from India were on the rolls of American colleges and universities during 2017-18, making it the fifth consecutive academic year which saw the figure increase.

Significantly, the increase in the number of Indian students comes at a time when the overall number of new international students in the US has dipped from 300,743 in 2015-16 to 290,836 in 2016-17 to 271,738 in 2017-18.

According to the 2018 Open Doors report released on Tuesday, the number of Indians studying in the United States rose by 5.4% over the last year to 196,271.

As many as 73% of the students from India in the US are enrolled in maths, computer science or engineering colleges. Ten per cent were enrolled in business and management fields, while 8% were admitted in physical science and health, the report said.

Indians, now, make up nearly 18% of all international students in the United States, and, as a group, are surpassed only by the Chinese. India also provided the second highest number of graduate students and fourth most undergraduates, the report has found. China sent 363,341 students to the US in 2017-18 and they constituted 33.2% of the international students there.

According to the report, the top five states receiving Indian students were New York, Texas, California, Illinois and Massachusetts. The number of American students studying in India has also increased to 4,704, which is 12.5% more than the year before, the report says.

“Looking at the last 10 years of data, the number of Indians going to the United States has doubled. The reasons are clear: Indian students are looking for a great education and the United States continues to offer this,” said Us-indian educational foundation minister counsellor for onsular affairs Joseph Pomper.

He said the American embassy continues to see well qualified Indians applying to study in the US as well as record attendance at US university fairs held across the country.

In 2017-18, US colleges and universities hosted over a million international students for the third consecutive year. Apart from India and China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil were the countries which sent most students.