Large no of foreign students in US are Indians!

Washington, Nov 14: India, for the fifth consecutive year, has sent highest number of students in various US varsities and colleges, says Institute of International Education (IIE).

In the current academic year 2005-06, India alone has 76,503 students in different universities and colleges in the United States, followed by China 62,582 and South Korea with 58,847.

The IIE, a New York-based education and training organisation, in its 2006 report on international education exchange, however, says there is 4.9 per cent decline in the number of Indian students.

IIE Executive Vice President Peggy Blumenthal attributed this decrease to ''booming employment possibilities'' in India.

The number of foreign students enrolled in the US higher education institutions during the current academic year remained within a fraction of a per cent of the previous year's totals, at 564,766, but new enrollments rose sharply.

However, it is no more a one-way traffic. US college students are also studying abroad in record numbers, including a 53 per cent increase in those going to India and 35 per cent more going to China.

The report found both, an 8 per cent increase in the US students going abroad in 2004-05, with higher growth outside traditional European destinations, and an 8 per cent increase in new foreign students enrolled last year at the US universities.

''We are increasing the number of scholarship programmes,'' Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Miller Crouch said at a brief on Sunday.

''We are continuing to make improvements in visa processing,'' he said.

UNI