iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
India has surpassed China as the country accounting for most international students in the U.S. A report by the International Educational Exchange confirmed the standing.
It said last year, the U.S. had a record 331,602 Indian students, which was a 23% increase from the year before.
Speaking to India media outlet PTI, Marvin Krislov, President of Pace University, said: “The growth of the Indian youth and their enthusiasm for education and the opportunities in the United States are very much a pull.”
“There’s a large Indian-American community that is part of the attraction. People enjoy having those close connections to the Indian community. There are also just enormous opportunities and so many Indians have come here and gotten their education. Some of them have stayed at least for a while and have had enormous success,” Krislov said.
As per the report, Indian enrollments increased primarily at the graduate (196,567, +19 percent) and Optional Practical Training (OPT) academic levels (97,556, +41 percent).
According to Raj Echambadi, President of Illinois Tech, there are two fundamental reasons for this.
“One, from a U.S. educational perspective, the quality of the Indian students is extraordinarily high. Close to about 60% of them, about 200,000 of them are in the graduate programmes in the U.S. out of the 330,000 (Indian students in the U.S.).
“Because our undergraduate infrastructure in India is phenomenal and most of these students are in STEM fields, so there is a natural fit… That fit is what is driving a lot of admissions towards Indian students,” Echambadi told PTI in an interview.
“The second broader reason is from the U.S. perspective. When you think about the two major countries, it has been China and India. Roughly about 60% of the student base in the U.S. international student base comes from these two countries. Obviously, over the last few years, there has been a very strong relationship between the Indian government and the U.S. government and it has not been the same (with China). That is actually what is accounting for this disparity, if you will,” he added.
Photo: Unsplash
