Over 2 lakh Indian students went to US in 2018-19, rise of 3%: Report

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The number of students enrolling for the first time at a US-based institution in 2018-19 declined by 0.9 per cent, recovering from sharper declines the year before, it said.

As many as 51.6 per cent of international students in the US pursued STEM fields in 2018-19 and the number of international students in Math and Computer Science programs grew by 9.4 per cent, surpassing business and management to become the second-largest field of study for international students, it said. Engineering remained the largest academic field for international students in 2018-19, with 21.1 per cent of all international students.

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“Student exchanges between our two countries help strengthen the foundation upon which our strategic partnership is built,” Charisse Phillips, US Embassy minister counsellor for consular affairs, said at the launch of the report in Delhi on Monday. “Indian students are looking for a great education and the United States offers the best return on this investment,” Phillips said.

According to the report, data from the US Department of Commerce stated that international students contributed USD 44.7 billion to the economy in 2018, an increase of 5.5 per cent from the previous year.

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The Open Doors report, conducted by the US-based Institute of International Education (IIE), is an annual survey of foreign students and scholars studying in the country and American students studying abroad in credit-bearing courses.