Foreign student(s) population.

For those of you who are either already studying in the United States or planning to one day, it might be interesting to know something about the foreign student population in the United States. For the academic year 1995/96 there was a sum of approximately 344,000 foreign students studying in the United States. This figure of 344,000 may seem like a very large number until you compare it with the total population of 241,000,000. The foreign student population has been growing for a number of years and is still growing, but the rate of increase has dropped sharply during the 1990s. During the 1980s, the population grew quite rapidly. For example, between 1985 and 1990, the average yearly increase was 12. 5% . However, the picture in the 1990s is quite different. The rate of increase has declined quite noticeably. In fact, the rate of increase between 1994/95 and 1995/96 was only 0. 5% , or one-half of one percent. Although the overall rate of increase has dropped to only 0. 5% , the number of students from some parts of the world is increasing while the number of students from other areas is decreasing. For example, during this same period, that is between the academic years 1994/ 95 and 1995/96, there was a decrease in the number of students from the Middle East, while the number of students from South and East Asia increased. These changes in the number of students coming from different parts of the world no doubt reflected changing economic and political situations. I’m sure you are aware of many of these changes, and perhaps we can discuss them at our next meeting. For today let’s confine our talk to first, a discussion of the origin of these students, or, in other words, where they came from; second, the kinds of studies they pursue; and, finally, the academic levels they are found in. If we have a little time left, we might quickly talk about in which geographic areas most of them go to school.
    Let’s discuss the origins of the foreign student population in the United States for the academic year 1995/96. Let’s discuss it in order from those areas sending the most students to those areas sending the fewest students. If we look at the figures provided by the annual census of foreign students in the United States for the year 1995/96, we see that most of the foreign students studying in the United States during this year were from South and East Asia. This is a rather large geographical area which includes such countries as China, Korea, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The total number of students from this area, South and East Asia was 156,830. In other words, roughly 2 out of every 5 foreign students come from South and East Asia. Almost 24,000 of this total were from China. Malaysia was close behind with just a little over 23,000 students. The next largest number of students came from the Middle East. The number of students from the Middle East came to about one-third the number from South and East Asia. The fourth largest number came from South America. Next came Europe, Africa, North America, and Oceania. Let’s recapitulate what we’ve said. The largest number of students studying in the United States during the academic year 1995/96 were from South and East Asia, followed by the Middle East, South America, Europe, Africa, North America, and Oceania.
    What fields are these large numbers of foreign students studying in? It probably won’t surprise you that the largest number are in the field of engineering. In fact, 21. 7% of the total number are studying engineering. Business and management is close behind, however, with a total of 18.9% . The third most popular field was mathematics and computer sciences with 10. 3%. As you can see, engineering with 21. 7% , business and management with 18.9% , and mathematics and computer sciences with 10. 3% comprise about one half of the total number of foreign students.
    Let’s discuss which academic levels these students can be found in. Foreign students can be found studying at all levels of higher education. As you might expect, the greatest number of them are studying at the undergraduate level approximately 158,000. The second largest group study at the graduate level and that number is just under 122,000. The rest study at junior colleges or in non-degree programs. It is at the graduate level that foreign students have the most impact. While foreign students comprise only 2.7% of the total U. S. student population, they account for 8. 7% of all the graduate students studying at U. S. institutions. Let me give you those percentages again so you can get a better view for the overall picture. Foreign students make up only 2.7% of the total U. S. student population, but they make up 8. 7% of the total graduate student population.
    Well, I see that’s all the time we have today. We’ll have to leave discussions of the geographic areas these students study in until another time.