China pips India to No 2 spot, has maximum students in US varsities: report

American universities had as many as 481,106 Chinese and 249,763 Indian students in 2017

India is the second largest source country of foreign students in the US, with over 200,000 Indians studying in various American universities in 2017, an official report said on Friday.

China tops the list with 481,106 students, according to a report released by the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Of over 1.5 million international students studying in various educational institutions in the US in 2017, Indians accounted for more than 2,49,763, the report said.

China and India together account for nearly half of the foreign students in America.

They are followed by three other Asian countries -- South Korea (95,701), Saudi Arabia (72,358) and Japan (41,862) in the top five.

Other countries in the top 10 are Canada, Vietnam, Brazil, Taiwan and Mexico.

However, India tops the list of students with STEM OPT authorisation.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme is a 24-month extension of OPT for qualifying students with STEM degrees. Pre-completion OPT takes place prior to a student's programme end date.

Of the 89,839 STEM OPT foreign students in 2017, as many as 50,507 were from India, followed by China (21,705), South Korea (1,670), Taiwan (1,360), and Iran (1,161).

Notably, Indians do not prefer to come to the US for school studies, the report indicated.

China with 44,573 students tops the list of foreign students at the higher secondary level, followed by South Korea (6,842), Vietnam (6,017), Mexico (2,865) and Brazil (1,926).