China Surpasses India in Sending Students to U.S.

China Surpasses India in Sending Students to U.S.
China surpassed India as the country with the most international students at U.S. colleges, with the number of Chinese scholars increasing 30 percent in the 2009-2010 academic year.

According to a report released by the Institute of International Education, a New York-based nonprofit that promotes exchanges between U.S. and overseas universities, a total of 1,27,628 students from China attended U.S. institutions of higher learning, making up 19 percent of international students in the U.S.

India, which had been the leading source of international students since 2001-2002, supplied 104,897 in 2009-2010, second to China. India's total rose 1.6 percent from a year earlier.

China had the biggest increase among the 25 countries sending the most students, followed by Saudi Arabia, which sent 15,810 students, a gain of 25 percent. The country with the biggest decline was Japan, which sent 24,842 students, a decrease of 15 percent.

The total number of international students in the U.S. climbed 2.9 percent to a record 690,923 in 2009-2010, according to the report. The total has increased every year since 2005- 2006.

The University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, hosted 7,987 international students, the most of any U.S. school, according to the report. USC was followed by the University of Illinois, in Urbana-Champaign, and New York University.

The number of U.S. students studying abroad declined less than 1 percent to 260,327 in 2008-2009, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the study. The most popular destination for U.S. students was the U.K., with 31,342, followed by Italy and Spain.