Students from China and India comprise half of all international students in the U.S., propelled by increased wealth in those countries and drawn by potential employment in America, education and immigration experts told VOA.

“The ratios are due largely to external demographic, geopolitical, and economic factors,” said Rachel Banks, senior director of public policy and legislative strategy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators. “It is largely driven by who can afford the cost of studying in the United States, as international students are not eligible for federal financial aid.”

China’s economy has grown markedly since opening to international trade in the 1970s and now stands as the second largest with a growing and more affluent middle class that can afford a foreign education.

“Manufacturing growth in China has raised a lot of Chinese incomes,” said Gaurav Khanna, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California-San Diego. “Now they can afford to come to the U.S.”

Chinese and Indian enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities swooped upward at the turn of the new century. In 2000, there were nearly 60,000 Chinese students in the U.S., and nearly 55,000 students from India. Student enrollment in U.S. schools from Japan and South Korea were not far behind.

By 2010, Chinese student enrollment had grown to almost 158,000 students in the U.S., with nearly 104,000 students from India, pulling far ahead of South Korea’s 73,000 students. Other nations sent even fewer.

In 2020, before drastic enrollment reductions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were more than 372,000 Chinese and 193,000 Indian students in the U.S., or 34% and 18%, respectively, of the 1,075,496 international students in the U.S., according to the Institute for International Education (IIE) headquartered in New York. Students from South Korea had dropped back to a distant third, sending close to 50,000, or 4.6% of the total in the U.S.

“China and India are the two most populous nations on the planet, and they generate large numbers of college-prepared students at a rate that their own higher education systems cannot meet,” Banks said. “So many students look abroad for higher education opportunities.”

“Until very recently, they didn't have kind of the next tier of good colleges in China,” said Khanna. “So students who couldn't get into the top, the top universities in China, would just say, let me go abroad.”

Bella Du, a recent Chinese graduate from American University in Washington, confirms Khanna’s explanation.

“More Chinese students want to study abroad, and America offers the opportunity of a very high-end university and resources that it provides,” she said.

When international students come to the U.S. for higher education, they bring billions in revenue — $41 billion in 2018-2019 — to the U.S., concentrated in regions where they are clustered: California, New York, New England (Massachusetts and Rhode Island), Upper Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan), Texas, Washington D.C. and Washington state.

Their career paths are clustered, too: 77% of international students specialize in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), which includes health professions.

“STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and health research are more advanced in the U.S. than in most other countries,” said Arun Krishnavajjala, an Indian student earning his Ph.D. in computer science at George Mason University in Virginia. “STEM jobs, in particular, are fueled by big tech, and most of the largest tech companies reside in the U.S., therefore, almost always requiring a U.S.-based educational requirement.”

A majority of international students, not only Chinese or Indian, cite immigration pathways to employment as one of the top reasons for studying in the U.S.

“A lot of Indian students essentially use the U.S. education system as a way to gain access to the U.S. labor market,” said Khanna. “If you come and do your education in the U.S., then you're going to get hired from the campus in the U.S. essentially.”

While H1-B visas are highly coveted by foreign workers, they are not easy to get. Last year, 65,000 were available, with 20,000 additional issued to foreigners with a master’s degree or who graduated from a U.S. university, according to the American Immigration Council.

Without an H1-B visa, international students who have graduated or exhausted the Optional Practical Training (OPT) visa — which allows them to stay up to three years after graduation — cannot legally work in the U.S.

“I think it is hard for international students to find jobs in the United States if you do not have a green card,” said, Du, referring to legal permanent residency in the U.S. “So I think it only depends on the resources and opportunities. If I find a job here then I will stay in the United States if I don’t then I will go back to China.”

Krishnavajjala, who is in the U.S. on a student visa, agrees.

“This is an issue a lot of immigrants face. Green cards take decades to get now and the government's banter about legal and illegal immigrants leaves immigrants who have lived here their entire life here in limbo about their future,” he said. “The government's incompetence in immigration in the last decade has put people like me in a situation of paying international tuition and fearing deportation every year.”

Some experts suggest that another reason the U.S. admits high numbers of Chinese students is to expose them to American democracy.

“Chinese and Russian students always learn a great deal about American democracy and other aspects of our society when they come here, and they take that knowledge back home with them,” wrote former Ambassador William A. Rugh in American Diplomacy in August 2020.

“Exposure to our ‘soft power’ has more impact on them than any imagined negative impact they might have on Americans,” wrote Rugh, who served as a U.S. foreign service officer from 1964 to 1995.

Critics, however, see allowing a large Chinese student presence as enabling espionage and the theft of U.S. intellectual property, especially in technology and medical research.

In June, a bipartisan bill, the Safeguarding American Innovation Act, was introduced in the U.S. Senate. The legislation aims to prevent foreign competitors such as China from stealing intellectual property developed at U.S. colleges and universities by mandating additional scrutiny of applications for U.S. visas as well as federal research grants.

Ruth Chane, a computer science major from Ethiopia, writes about her experiences settling into student life at Whitman College in the U.S. state of Washington.

"The community at Whitman College made sure I felt welcomed even before I stepped foot on campus," she says.

Read her essay here.

In The Student Life, the student newspaper for the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of five liberal art colleges and two graduate schools in Claremont, California, student Rochelle Lu writes about readjusting to her Shanghai home after spending a semester in the United States.

Read the full story here.

Cedarville University in the U.S. state of Ohio says it’s got more than 140 international students representing 44 countries.

Here, the school interviews Jonathan Sutton, director of international student services. He talks about his job and the opportunities for international students on campus.

Read the full article here.

Morehouse College, a private, historically Black liberal arts college in the U.S. state of Georgia, offers a guide for international students interested in attending the school.

Among the tips to apply and thrive at Morehouse:

• Take advantage of the school’s orientation program
• Turn to the school’s Center for Academic Success for tutoring, support and more
• Immerse yourself in campus life via clubs and societies

Read the full article here.

WASHINGTON — 

The administration of President Donald Trump said on Monday it will review Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism, which it says the educational institution has shown inaction in tackling.

Rights advocates note rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since U.S. ally Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Hamas militants' deadly October 2023 attack.

The Justice Department said a month ago it formed a task force to fight antisemitism. The U.S. Departments of Health and Education and the General Services Administration jointly made the review announcement on Monday.

"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said.

The agencies said no contracting actions had been taken yet.

"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."

The agencies did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Columbia had no immediate comment. It previously said it made efforts to tackle antisemitism.

College protests

Trump has signed an executive order to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's assault on Gaza. There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.

During last summer's demonstrations around the country, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned and student protesters were suspended and arrested.

While the intensity of protests has decreased in recent months, there were some demonstrations last week in New York after the expulsion of two students at Columbia University-affiliated Barnard College and after New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the removal of a Palestinian studies job listing at Hunter College.

A third student at Barnard College has since been expelled, this one related to the occupation of the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia last year.