The number of foreign students coming to US colleges and universities continued to fall last year, according to a new report, but US President Donald Trump’s administration said the drop should be blamed on high tuition costs and not students’ concerns over the nation’s political atmosphere.
An annual report from the Institute of International Education found that the number of newly enrolled international students dipped by 1 percent in fall last year compared with the year before.
It follows decreases of 7 percent and 3 percent in the previous two years, which were the first downturns in more than a decade. The downturn is a worry for universities that have come to rely on tuition from foreign students, who are typically charged higher rates.
Some schools have blamed Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants for driving students away, but officials at the US Department of State, which pays for the annual report, dismissed the idea.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Academic Programs Caroline Casagrande, at the department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, said students are deterred by the high cost to attend US schools.
She said the downturn is tied to students who were applying to college during former US president Barack Obama’s administration, and that the numbers appear to be rebounding under Trump.
“What we’ve seen today is a dramatically better picture compared to last year’s declines,” Casagrande said during a telephone call with reporters. “The Trump administration has dedicated more resources than ever to international student mobility.”
While fewer new students are coming, the study found that more are staying for professional training after they graduate.
More than 220,000 were granted permission to stay for temporary work through a federal program, an increase of about 10 percent over fall 2017.
China continued to send more students than any other country, followed by India, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, but booming years of growth from China have leveled off.
The number of overall Chinese students in the country ticked up less than 2 percent, and some campuses have seen major decreases in Chinese enrollment.
However, the number of Taiwanese students enrolled during the 2018-2019 academic year rose for the fourth consecutive year to 23,369, a 4.1 percent increase over the previous year.
Forty percent were enrolled in graduate studies and 31.1 percent were undergraduates, while 21.8 percent were taking optional practical training programs and 7.1 percent were in non-degree programs.
The report found that far fewer students are coming from Saudi Arabia, a shift that began in 2017 after the nation scaled back a scholarship program for global study. There were also dips in students coming from South Korea, Japan and Mexico.
However, numbers from Brazil and Bangladesh jumped 10 percent last year, the report found, while Nigeria ticked up 6 percent.
The subjects students study are also starting to shift. The number of students studying business fell 7 percent, while math and computer science saw a 9 percent increase and surpassed business as the No. 2 subject behind engineering, the report found.
Additional reporting by CNA
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