COLUMBUS, Ohio — Chinese students are enrolling in U.S. universities in record numbers, encouraged by aggressive recruiting combined with China’s booming economy and growing middle class.
Their enrollment grew by 8 percent in the fall of 2006 and by 20 percent last year, according to Institute of International Education figures being released today.
Individual universities surveyed by The Associated Press also reported high growth this year. Chinese enrollment increased 300 percent this year at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. George Fox University in Newberg, Ore., accepted 65 students from China, more than double its 2007 figure.
The spike was more than 400 percent at Ohio State University, the nation’s largest campus, with 115 undergraduates from China compared with 20 last year.
The influx is part of a solid and welcome rebound in the number of international students coming to the United States, with its pool of 4,000 colleges and universities.
Numbers of international students had dropped alarmingly because of competition from other countries and tighter visa procedures after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But the latest IIE report finds 7 percent more foreign students at U.S. universities than a year ago, at an all-time high of 624,000.
India again sent the most students, followed by China and South Korea.
A snapshot survey that the institute did of campuses this fall found that 55 percent reported increases in students from China, the most from any country.
The number of Americans studying abroad is also at a record high, the IIE reports, increasing 8 percent to 242,000 in 2006-07 — the latest year figures are available.
U.S. students continued the trend toward less traditional destinations, with increases of more than 20 percent each to China, Argentina, South Africa, Ecuador and India.
