Indian students in US fast approaching 200K mark

Washington, Aug 31: The number of Indian students in the US has grown remarkably by more than 28 per cent in the past one year to reach a new high of nearly 200,000, according to an official report released today.

Indian students totalled 192,723 this July, the report by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

But despite having peaked by 28.5 per cent in the past one year, Indian students trailed their Chinese counterparts, who topped the list at 323,186.

China, however, experienced a growth of just 7.2 per cent in the number of its students in the US in the past one year.

There were 1.11 million international students with 'F' (academic) or 'M' (vocational) status studying in the US, said the report based on real-time data extracted from Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), part of the US Immigration.

Based on the data from Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) on July 7, international student enrollment at US schools increased 5.5 per cent compared to July 2015.

In July this year, there were 8,673 US schools with SEVP certification to enroll international students, a 2 per cent decrease from the previous year.

Forty-two per cent of international students studying in the US, equaling almost 467,000 individuals, were enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) coursework, an increase of 15.2 per cent from July 2015.

Approximately 407,000 international students from Asia pursued STEM studies, an increase of 17 per cent since July 2015.

In all, Asia accounted for 856,681 students an increase of 6.6 percentage.

Interestingly, of all F&M students from India a massive 83 per cent pursue degrees in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

More STEM students are from India than any other country.

Whereas 68 per cent of all F&M students who pursue mathematics and statistics coursework are from China, it said.
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Among US schools, New York University, the University of Southern California, Northeastern University, Arizona State University and Columbia University rank one through five for schools with the highest international student populations.

More than 10,000 international students were enrolled at each school in July.

Arkansas and New Hampshire saw the highest percentages in international student growth, at 20 and 19 per cent respectively, compared to July 2015.

Another key feature of the report was that 77 per cent of all international students were from Asia.

The top 10 countries of citizenship for international students included: China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil and Mexico.

PTI