When I first arrived in the U.S. for college, in 1999, I was one of roughly half a million international students. The number stagnated for the next six to seven years in the wake of 9/11, but then picked up again at great speed. Today, over a million international students — 1,078,822 to be exact — are attending U.S. colleges and universities. This represents a 3.4 percent increase over 2016 and a two-fold increase over the last decade, according to the latest Open Doors report by the Institute of International Education (IIE). This increase has been driven in part by Chinese and Indian students, who make up half of all international students in the U.S., and whose numbers have grown by 6.8 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively, since last year.
Data for 2016–2017 confirms that the flow of new students arriving in the U.S. remained steady at 290,836, in line with the record-breaking years of 2014–2015 (293,766) and 2015–2016 (300,743). Had the governments in Brazil (32 percent year-over-year decrease) and Saudi Arabia (14 percent year-over-year decrease) fully maintained their generous scholarship programs, it’s even possible the U.S. would have had an increase in the overall flow of new international students arriving this year.
To some, this trend of continuing high numbers may be surprising given the current White House’s attitude towards immigration (e.g., the Mexican border wall, travel bans and the DACA rescission to name just a few tweets). Yet, according to IIE, the consistent yearly growth in international students over the past 60 years has shown a certain resilience from the volatility in U.S. politics.
Canada has also experienced a surge in their number of international students, which has nearly tripled over the past decade to 415,000. In fact, the 17 percent year-over-year increase in the flow of international students to Canada in 2016 suggests that the growth could further accelerate. And similarly, to the U.S., Chinese and Indian students comprise a large share of international students, together accounting for more than half of the total international student population.