Every sixth non-immigrant student in 2019 came from India.
India and China sent nearly half the non-immigrant students to study in the US in calendar years 2017, 2018 and 2019 with every sixth student calling India home, according to a new report.
China (474,497) and India (249,221) were followed by the Republic of South Korea) (84,071), and Saudi Arabia (53,283) in 2019, says the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) report.
Making up a total of 733,718 or about 47.50% of all active Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records, both India and China saw decreases in their numbers in 2019, compared to 2018.
There were 4,235 fewer student records from China and 2,069 fewer student records from India, according to the report from SEVP, which is a part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The number of students from China and India made Asia the most popular continent of origin with 75 per cent of all non-immigrant students in the US calling Asia home.
The report notes that there were 1.52 million active records in SEVIS for F-1 and M-1 students during calendar year 2019, a 1.7 percent decrease from calendar year 2018.
While number of such students from Asia decreased by 28,063, Asia remains the number one continent of origin for non-immigrant students with 1,137,419 student records.
There were 532,711 records in SEVIS for J-1 exchange visitors during calendar year 2019, a 1.7 percent increase from calendar year 2018.
Many non-immigrant students obtained an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) through Optional Practical Training (OPT).
In 2019, there were 140,137 pre- and post-completion OPT students, 72,168 STEM OPT students and 116,337 Curricular Practical Training (CPT) students, who received an EAD and reported working for an employer.
In 2019, California continued to host more non-immigrant students (294,657) than any other state, accounting for 19.3 percent of non-immigrant students in the US.
New York and Massachusetts rounded out the top states for enrollment in 2019 with 174,737 and 102,695, respectively.
During 2019, a total of 8,649 US schools possessed SEVP certification to enroll non-immigrant students.
Of the certified schools that hosted a non-immigrant student, 65 percent hosted between one and 50 non-immigrant students during the calendar year, the report said.
Five SEVP-certified schools – New York University (19,750), Columbia University in the City of New York (19,741), Northeastern University (19,410), the University of Southern California (19,063) and the University of Illinois (15,017) – enrolled more than 15,000 non-immigrant students in 2019.
As many as 86% of non-immigrant students pursued higher education degree programs in 2019, equating to almost 1.31 million SEVIS records, which is on par with the number of students pursuing higher education degrees in 2018.
The largest growth and decline came from students seeking doctoral and associate degrees, respectively. Doctoral degree programs saw a 5.2 percent increase in enrollment, while associate degree programs saw an 8.1 percent decrease.
There were 1.01 million F-1 students in the US seeking bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 2019.
Over 78,000 non-immigrant students were enrolled in K-12 programs of study, and about 92 percent of those students were enrolled in secondary school programs (grades 9-12).
China sent more K-12 students than any other country, comprising nearly half of the K-12 non-immigrant student population in 2019.
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