A new study found for the second year in a row there are more than one million foreign-born students at US universities today.
This is an 85% increase since 2006-2007.
Joe Guzzardi from CAPS web reported:
For the second consecutive year, international student enrollment in U.S. universities topped one million. According to the annual “Open Doors” report on the 2016-2017 academic year from the Institute of International Education (IIE), the 1.08 million matriculated foreign-born students represent a new record, an 85 percent increase since 2006-2007. The number of newly enrolled, first-year students, however, dipped slightly.
The top sending countries for international students headed to U.S. campuses are China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico and Brazil. The primary hosting states are California, New York, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Each saw international student increases in 2016-17.
California has the most foreign-born students, 157,000, and the most coveted destinations are New York University and the University of Southern California, followed by three University of California schools. NYU and USC are private schools, but UC is a land grant school meaning its long overlooked charter is to provide for state residents.
IIE has a decidedly globalist perspective on the steady increase in overseas students, and emphasizes the academic and economic benefits of a diverse enrollment. Given IIE’s views, its report mostly ignores several important components that should be addressed in an international student analysis. Significant but overlooked considerations are that each enrollee from abroad leaves a qualified U.S. kid on the sidelines, and that the universities’ administrators are enamored of the higher out-of-state tuition fees that international students pay.
But sustained international enrollment and its potentially negative effect on U.S. students has caught the attention of some elite universities’ administrators. In a 2016 interview with The Washington Post, Georgetown Dean of Admissions Charles Deacon spoke with admirable candor. Deacon said he is concerned that international enrollment could be nearing an unacceptable level at some schools by potentially crowding out qualified U.S. students.
