Huge surge in students from India in last 2 years.
AB Wire
There were a total of 181,051 Indian students enrolled for higher education in the United States by November 2015, according to data released by the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) under the Department of Homeland Security.
That number is a surge of 71% in just under two years. In January 2014, there were 105,426 Indians studying in the US, according to SEVIS.
The SEVIS data indicates that most Indian students were enrolled in master’s degree programs, rather than the more expensive and lengthier undergraduate degree programs.
In 2015, 77% or nearly three out of four Indian students in the US were enrolled for master’s programs, according to SEVIS. Indians are also less likely (only 10%) to enroll in the more expensive four-year bachelor’s degrees, compared to the Chinese (36%), analyzed Quartz.
The average cost of a year’s tuition fees for international students may range between $23,800 (Rs16 lakh) at public colleges and universities to $32,400 at private institutions. The demand for American master’s programs is evident from the more than 210,000 applications received from Indian students in 2015.
Most Indian students are interested in engineering, computer science, and related “STEM”—science-technology-engineering—fields that provide an extended opportunity to work in the US through OPT (Optional Practical Training). In fact, 82% of Indians were enrolled in STEM programs, while the figure was only 38% for the Chinese, according to SEVIS.
Indian students’ top destinations in the US are IT hubs. Nearly 40% of them are enrolled in just three states—California (30,823), Texas (21,590), and New York (17,711)—according to SEVIS. The number in California doubled from 15,327 in April 2014 to 30,823 in December 2015. The growth rates in Texas and New York are slower at 54% and 39%, respectively, compared to 59% nationwide.