Foreign students storm the US: Five facts about who they are

International students flocked to US colleges and universities in record numbers in the 2010-11 academic year.

The number surged nearly 5 percent over the previous year, reaching 723,277, according to the latest annual "Open Doors" report by the Institute of International Education and the State Department. The jump suggests a global hunger for the cachet and opportunity afforded by an American college education – despite the high cost to families and foreign governments.

Foreign students contribute more than $21 billion to the US economy in tuition costs, book-buying, and living expenses – making higher education a top US service-sector export, the report finds. The makeup of international students in the US is changing in some surprising ways. Here are five.

- Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer


1. Big surge from China

The Chinese are big believers in the value of an American education. The number of students from China surged a whopping 23 percent in 2010-2011 to 157,558 – a jump of nearly 30,000 from the year before. That means more than 1 in 5 foreign students in the US is from China.

Intent perhaps on solving the mystery of global business dominance by American companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Boeing, more than one-quarter of Chinese students in the US are pursuing studies in business and management. Even so, that concentration is still less than the percentage of Vietnamese, Indonesian, and French foreign students in business and management studies. Coming in a close second for Chinese students are engineering and related fields.

2. Rebound from Saudi Arabia

The top five countries sending students to US colleges and universities in 2010-11 are the same as the year before: China, India, South Korea, Canada, and Taiwan. But the No. 6 slot this year goes to Saudi Arabia, which saw an astonishing 43.6 percent jump in one year – to 22,704 – in the number of students studying in the US.

After the 9/11 attacks, the number of Saudi students at US colleges and universities plummeted. The drop reflected a sentiment among many Saudi students that they no longer felt welcome in the US, amid increased federal scrutiny of foreigners in general and Arabs and Muslims in particular.

But the Saudis are back, the result in part of new Saudi government scholarship programs encouraging foreign study. Business and engineering are hot fields of study for the Saudis, but intensive English study tops their list. Nearly one-third of Saudi students are in the US to focus on learning English, the "Open Doors" report finds.

3. Fewer from India

India has been the No. 1 source of foreign students in the US for much of the past decade, dethroned by China only in 2009. The 2010-11 numbers suggest the bloom may be off the American higher-education rose for some Indians.

The number of Indian students declined 1 percent from 2009-10, to 103,895 – a decline that appears to track a recent trend among Indian nationals working in the US who are choosing to return to a more robust economy at home.

As for declines, the "Open Doors" study reveals that Brazil (another of the so-called BRICS countries of emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) also saw a small drop in the number of students it is sending for study in the US.

Could it be that some of these emerging economies are feeling less compelled to send their students abroad when their own economies are booming

4. Sayonara from Japan

The Japanese are disappearing from America's college campuses. Blame this spring's earthquake and tsunami, a sputtering global economy, and Japan’s graying population.

Japan's one-year decline in the number of students at US colleges and universities was among the steepest – a 14.3 percent chute. Japan is now No. 7 on the list of countries sending students to the US.

That decline was actually a bit below the previous year’s retreat of 15.1 percent.

Just over 21,000 Japanese are now studying at US colleges and universities– a steep drop from the heyday of the late 1990s, when a peak of 47,000 Japanese were on US campuses, giving Japan the first-place crown for foreign students in the US.

The earthquake and tsunami only deepened an economic morass that has more Japanese families thinking twice before sending a son or daughter abroad to study, some Japan experts say.

But for others, demographics are the main explanation for Japan’s continuing drop on the list of international students in the US. Japan is aging, and as a result there are simply fewer young people clamoring to study in the US.

5. Revile your country, but love your schools

After Saudi Arabia and China, which country had the highest year-to-year percentage increase in the number of students in the US?

Iran.

In the 2010-2011 academic year, 5,626 Iranians were studying in the US – an 18.9 percent jump over the year before.

That number reflects a steady incline from a low of fewer than 1,700 students in the late 1990s. But it remains a far cry from the number of Iranians who chose the US for higher education in the days of the shah. In 1979-80 – the year of the Iranian revolution – 51,310 Iranians were studying on US campuses, putting Iran atop the list of countries sending students to American universities.

Why Iran’s ruling ayatollahs see fit to allow more Iranians to pursue studies in the United States – aka "the Great Satan" – is anyone's guess. But Iran isn't the only anti-American nation to send students here to study. Venezuela, under Hugo Chávez, another international detractor of the US, is also sending more university students to America.

Venezuela has 5,491 students on US campuses, an increase of nearly 11 percent over the previous year. That puts the land of President Chávez just one rung below that of Chavez’s comrade-in-criticism of the US, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/ ... from-China