The annual flow of Indian students to the United States for higher education has witnessed a record spike with as many as 132,888 of them flocking to American universities during the 2014/15 academic year — up by nearly 30 per cent from the previous year’s 102,673.
India, however, is second only to China, which continues to top the US table of international students. There are now 304,040 Chinese students on American campuses, compared to 274,439 a year ago. But India has outpaced China’s growth of 10.8 per cent by a long measure this year.
“This is the highest rate of growth for Indian students in the history of the Open Doors project, which spans back to 1954/55,” says the just-released 2015 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. “The last time India grew at a comparable rate (29.1) was in 2000/01 when the number of students from India exceeded 50,000 for the first time.”
China and India, between them, now account for nearly 45 per cent of the total number of 974,926 international students enrolled with American universities from across the world. While the majority of Indian students study at the graduate level, Chinese are sending large numbers to study at the undergraduate level as well, notes the report.
South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Brazil, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam and Mexico are the other countries to join China and India on the Top 10 table.
“This strong growth confirms that the United States remains the destination of choice in higher education,” the US Institute of International Education (IIE) said, adding the US hosts almost double the number joining universities in the United Kingdom, the second leading host country.
For the American universities, the increase in international students also represents a massive inflow of funds. Overall, the international students are estimated to be pumping in more than $30 billion into the US economy, with Indian students accounting for $3.6 billion.
“We are excited to see that record numbers of students are taking advantage of international education opportunities,” said Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan. IIE president Allan E. Goodman commented that “studying in another country prepares students to be real contributors to working across borders to address key issues in the world we share”.
California remains the biggest host State for international students, accounting for more than 120,000 students, followed by New York, Texas, Massachusetts and Illinois. And New York University is said to be the leading host university. Eight universities including NYU host more than 10,000 annually. The others are: University of Southern California, Columbia University, Arizona State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Northeastern University, Purdue University-West lafayette and University of California-los Angeles.