International students in the United States

United States is a popular destination for international students. This can include primary, secondary and post-secondary students. Studying abroad is determined in the United States by political rationales of national security and foreign policy. The number of students studying abroad represents only about 1% of all students enrolled at institutions of higher education in the United States.

History
Due to COVID-19 and the restrictions, there was a significant drop of 72% for new international students enrolling to schools in US compared to 2019.

Education and expenses for the students primarily comes from personal or family source, foreign government, or overseas sponsors. The decline in influx of the international students coming to US has caused an economic loss of $1.17 billion to United States.

Chinese students in the United States
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter approved virtually unlimited access by Chinese students and academics to the United States, provided that the costs were not paid by the United States. Coming during the visit by Frank Press to China in July of that year, the decision to handle educational exchanges in this manner pre-dated the normalization of People's Republic of China-United States relations.

In China, study abroad in United States is increasingly popular. Many students carry on the purpose of acquiring higher and better education in American universities. Chinese students prefer to study in the US because US education focuses on quality education instead of quantity education followed by Chinese system. According to Kun and David (2010), "Traditional Chinese culture places well-educated scholars in the highest social rank. Academic achievement is also an honour to the family. Dedication to scholarship becomes not only a personal goal but also a culture goal for Chinese international students." Students from wealthy and middle-class families can fund their education and bear the expense of visa and education in the US.

As of 2022, China was by far the largest source of students studying abroad in the United States. As of that year more than 370,000 tertiary-level students from China were studying in American colleges and universities.

Indian students in the United States
The number of Indian students in the United States grew from 148,360 in March 2015 to 194,438 in March 2016, a jump of 31.1%, according to the latest 'SEVIS by the Numbers' report. This is second only to China. Indian students contributed $5.01 billion to the US economy in 2015–16 according to the Open Doors data 2016.

As per Opendoor's’ 2021 report, India is the second most common place of origin for international students in the United States while ranking at 22 as a study abroad destination for U.S. students. According to a report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, these international students in 2020 had an economic impact of approximately $6.2 billion. The total number of international students from India in the years 2018–19 and 2019–20 were 202,014 and 193,124 respectively. This number dropped by 13.2% for the year 2020–21. In the academic years 2019–20 and 2020–2021, the applicants in the Graduate and OPT academic level were approximately equal and about 85% of total international students from India. Approximately 14% applied at the undergraduate level while non-degree applicants were the lowest at 1% or less.

The vast majority of international students from India enrolling for study programs choose STEM field. According to OpenDoors’ 2021 report classifying field of study by place of origin, out of the total 167,582 Indian applicants, 33.5% chose to pursue Engineering while 34.8% chose Math or Computer Science as their field of study. Business and Management studies followed far behind at 11.7%.