Over 100,000 Indians studying in America

With 113,813 Indians studying in America, India is second only to China with 290,133 students among more than a million international students enrolled in nearly 9,000 US schools, according to a new report.

As of April 1, 75 percent of all international students in US schools using an F (academic) or M (vocational) visa were from Asia, said the US Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP) report.

Of them, 29 percent were from China followed by 11 percent from India, said the quarterly report compiled by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Saudi Arabia and India had the greatest percentage increase of students studying in the US at 10 and eight percent, respectively, when compared to January statistics.

The top 10 countries of citizenship for international students included: China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil.

The April report also reveals that 24 percent of all international STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students studying engineering originate from China and India.

India and Canada also sent 25 percent of all students in health professionals and related programmes.

As many as 78 percent of international students from India studied STEM fields, while only eight percent of international students from Japan studied STEM fields.

Among international students studying STEM fields, 67 percent were males, while 43 percent of all international STEM students studied engineering.

Other key points from the report include: 77 percent of SEVP-certified schools had between zero and 50 international students; 72 percent of international students were enrolled in Bachelor's, Master's or Doctoral programmes; and California, New York and Florida had the most SEVP-certified schools.

A school must be SEVP-certified before it can enroll international students.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)