There has been an astounding 32 per cent increase this year in the number of students flocking to American universities for higher studies. It is the biggest increase from any single country for the year, although in overall terms, China still tops the table in a big way.
Figures just released by the US Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP) indicate that 149,987 Indian students are currently enrolled in American universities of a total of 1.05 million. Chinese students number 301,532.
When it comes to the highly-coveted STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) stream, it is Indian students all the way. As many as 81 per cent of Indian students, compared to just 40 per cent of Chinese students, are enrolled in STEM courses.
“More international students studied engineering than any other STEM field of study, with 29 percent of those engineering students coming from India,” says the report.
Data extracted from the web-based Student and Exchange Visitor Information System points to a total of 1,054,505 international students enrolled with US universities as of July 7 this year, representing a 9 per cent increase over the previous year.
The report points out that as much as 76 per cent of all international students are from Asia. The top 10 countries sending students to the US are China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil.
Universities in California, New York and Texas, between them, account for 36 per cent of international students. The top five schools in terms of enrolment of foreign students are University of Southern California, New York University, Columbia University, University of Illinois and Purdue University.