International students enrolled in the US climbed 3.8% during the 2021-22 academic year, after plunging 15% in the previous school year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the annual Open Doors report released Monday by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the State Department.
While China continued to be the largest source of international students, 30.6% of the total, enrolment from the country dropped 8.6% year over year to 290,086 in the 2021-22 period, following a 14.8% decline in the previous academic year.
In comparison, 199,182 students from India, the second-largest place of origin, enrolled during the same period, up 18.9% from a year earlier.
South Korea – the third-largest source of international students – saw a 3.2% enrolment growth.
The most significant decreases among Chinese students were at the undergraduate and optional practical training level – a temporary work training programme in the US before or after graduation – which dropped 12.8% and 21.7%, respectively.
Graduate students from China, however, saw a 3.6% year-over-year growth in the 2021-22 academic year.
“There are different parental concerns when it came to younger students coming here given the travel restrictions early on,” said Allan Goodman, CEO of IIE at a news briefing.
The pandemic, which made it harder for foreign students to secure jobs and visas, and growing tension between China and US have contributed to drops in Chinese student enrolment over consecutive years.
Despite the tensions between governments, however, “the Biden administration has been very clear that Chinese students are welcome”, Ethan Rosenzweig, deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the State Department, said at the briefing.
“Our US universities continue to value Chinese students, prioritising recruitment in the PRC, and welcoming students on their campuses and in their communities,” he added, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China. “I’m looking forward to the PRC opening its borders for US universities to recruit in person in the PRC very soon as well.”
Visa issuances have been a major concern for Chinese students, especially those in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Then-US president Donald Trump introduced a ban in May 2020 that effectively prevents students studying in STEM fields who are affiliated with several Chinese universities from getting US visas.
However, Robert Batchelder, managing director for visa services in the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department, said the presidential proclamation only affects a “very, very small” number of Chinese nationals who want to study in the US.
“There are some perceptions out there that are perhaps unfounded. The student visa application process in China, in terms of scrutiny, the difficulty, really is no harder or more complicated than anywhere else in the world,” said Batchelder.
The US issued around 65,000 F-1 student visas to Chinese nationals for the fiscal year from October 2021 to September 2022, according to Batchelder, which is about half the almost 125,000 student visas F-1 visas issued to Indian nationals during the same period.
“In China, of course, it’s been difficult with the Covid situation and the internal travel restrictions for people to get to our embassy or consulates, but also, I think fewer people are travelling outside of China,” said Batchelder.
International students remain a key driver of American universities’ revenues and local economies as they tend to pay more tuition than domestic students.
International students contributed US$32 billion to the U.S. economy in 2021, according to the US Commerce Department.
“Independent of the state of relationships and political tensions, education operates in a different space, and we expect that to continue in respect to China, no matter what the temperature is,” said IIE’s Goodman.