Indian students in US fast approaching 200K mark

From Lalit K Jha Washington, Aug 31 (PTI) The number of Indian students inthe US has grown remarkably by more than 28 per cent in thepast one year to reach a new high of nearly 200,000, accordingto an official report released today. Indian students totalled 192,723 this July, the report byUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. But despite having peaked by 28.5 per cent in the past oneyear, Indian students trailed their Chinese counterparts, whotopped the list at 323,186. China, however, experienced a growth of just 7.2 per centin the number of its students in the US in the past one year. There were 1.11 million international students with ‘F'(academic) or ‘M’ (vocational) status studying in the US, saidthe report based on real-time data extracted from Student andExchange Visitor Program (SEVP), part of the US Immigration. Based on the data from Student and Exchange VisitorInformation System (SEVIS) on July 7, international studentenrollment at US schools increased 5.5 per cent compared toJuly 2015. In July this year, there were 8,673 US schools with SEVPcertification to enroll international students, a 2 per centdecrease from the previous year. Forty-two per cent of international students studying inthe US, equaling almost 467,000 individuals, were enrolled inscience, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)coursework, an increase of 15.2 per cent from July 2015. Approximately 407,000 international students from Asiapursued STEM studies, an increase of 17 per cent since July2015. In all, Asia accounted for 856,681 students an increase of6.6 percentage. Interestingly, of all F&M students from India a massive 83per cent pursue degrees in a STEM (science, technology,engineering and mathematics). More STEM students are from India than any other country. Whereas 68 per cent of all F&M students who pursuemathematics and statistics coursework are from China, it said.PTI LKJ ABH AKJABH