Chinese graduate students once far outnumbered their undergraduate counterparts at USA schools, but by 2015, 41 percent of Chinese students in the United States were undergraduates, compared with 39.6 percent for graduate students. The number of US students in China dropped 4.5 percent in the 2013-14 academic year to 13,763.
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Those students spent about $789 million in Washington in 2014-15 to pay for tuition, housing, food and other expenses, according to IIE.
A report by the U.S. Institute of worldwide Education revealed that, for the first time, the number of Chinese mainland students studying in US colleges and universities have exceeded 300,000. Robust economic growth in Asia’s emerging economies is also driving more students in the region to pursue postgraduate studies as a means to better employment opportunities. While China remains the top country of origin of worldwide students in the US, increasing by 11 percent to 304,040, India’s growth outpaced China’s this year, with students from India increasing 29.4 percent to a record high of 132,888.
The dramatic rise in the number of Chinese students in the United States has led in a few cases to concerns about the students’ ability to integrate into US campus and social life, which often centers on sports, social clubs, and community organizations that may be unfamiliar to Chinese students.
The latest Open Doors data indicates yet another year of growth in global student enrollment. Evan Ryan, U.S. assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, attributed the huge increase to rising incomes in China, as well as the excellence of American education. But much of last year’s growth is credited to a surge in the number of students who came from India, drawn by strong research programs, experts say.
The majority of Indian students in the USA study at the graduate level, according to the report.
The Department of Commerce reports that global students contributed almost $31 billion to the US economy in the 2014-15 school year.
“They can get a great education at many institutions in all kinds of climates and settings here in America”, Goodman says. More than 350 U.S. universities and colleges are part of the initiative.
A statement from the mayor’s office said that while this would not be restricted to any one nation, “this would be attractive to Indian students for whom STEM degrees are popular”.
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When he visited China in November 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the sending of 100,000 American students to China in the following four years. In many countries, a national exam determines every student’s future: One bad day, and a student’s options can narrow dramatically. Should all American colleges, whether private or public, be spending more resources to recruit first-generation and minority students from the USA before bringing in students from overseas?
