Covering the business of education and training

Ever since 9/11 it seems that schools have been having a hard time recruiting international students. Seems is the key word.

It is not the actual case.

According to Opendoors 2006, America has seen a steady influx of foreign students for the past 7 years - all of them over with over a 500,000 students and the peak three years ago at 586,000.

The top twenty countries sending students to the US are:

#1 India is the leading place of origin for international students with 76,503 students in the U.S. in 2005/06 (a decrease of 5% from the previous year), followed by

#2 China (62,582, up less than 1%),

#3 Korea (58,847, up 10%),

#4 Japan (38,712, down 8%),

#5 Canada (28,202, up less than 1%),

#6 Taiwan (27,876, up 8%),

#7 Mexico (13,931, up 7%),

#8 Turkey (11,622, down 7%),

#9 Germany (8,829, up 2%),

#10 Thailand (8,765, up 2%),

#11 United Kingdom (8,274, up less than 1%),

#12 Hong Kong (7,849, up 9%),

#13 Indonesia (7,575, down 2%),

#14 Brazil (7,009, down 3%),

#15 Colombia (6,835, down 7%),

#16 France (6,640, up 1%),

#17 Kenya (6,559, down 3%),

#18 Nigeria (6,192, down 2%),

#19 Nepal (6,061, up 25%),

#20 Pakistan (5,759 , down 9%).

Students from Asia hold 5 of the top 6 spots and those 5 countries represent nearly half of all international students in the U.S.

For all the complaining that my Indian and Chinese friends do about getting visas to come to the U.S....they still hold the top two positions.

I guess it can't be that hard after all...unless you consider the percentages of students applying with those being accepted.

What do you think?

Extensive data tables can be found here.