As the surge of students from China begins to level off, many US colleges are expanding recruiting efforts in the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America in part to boost budgets that have come to rely on tuition dollars from international students. The number of Chinese students at US colleges rose from 62,000 a decade ago to 3,28,000 last year, and they still make up 31 per cent of all international students in the US, but growth is slowing. Today, the Institute of International Education released federal data showing that the number of Chinese students at US colleges grew by eight per cent last year, the smallest uptick since 2005. Some schools are bracing for a decline, citing China's sluggish economy and sharper competition from colleges in Australia and other countries. "For a variety of factors, we're seeing a slowdown in Chinese enrollment," said Todd Maurer, a California analyst who advises schools and education companies on trends in Asia. "I think we're seeing the last years of double-digit growth," he said. Colleges seek international students partly to boost campus diversity, but they also bring a financial perk. Most schools don't offer scholarships for international students, and charge them full tuition costs. Losing foreign students could hurt college budgets, especially at a time when some public universities are struggling with long-term drops in state funding. Stephen Dunnett, vice provost for international education at the University at Buffalo, said many colleges worry they depend too heavily on revenue from Chinese students. "They would be severely hurt if there was a contraction," he said. "There's no Plan B. There's no other country that would send students in those numbers." Buffalo is among many universities that have expanded global recruiting efforts in part to hedge against a possible decline from China. Along with continued work in China, Dunnett's office has turned its attention to growing countries such as Vietnam and Burma. Next year, the college plans to recruit in Iran for the first time. Read: These are world’s most expensive colleges This year, the University of Massachusetts Amherst made its first recruiting trip to Mexico and also bolstered its work in Singapore and Vietnam. Instead of sending recruiters to China this year, Bucknell University in Pennsylvania focused on India and sent admissions officials to South America for the first time in about a decade. Other schools are exploring whether there could be a boom from sub-Saharan Africa. Nations such as Uganda, Ethiopia and Angola have growing youth populations and middle classes, two of the factors that US colleges look for, but some say the region's governments don't offer enough funding to help students study abroad. Other countries where US schools see recruiting promise include Cuba, Nigeria and India, which sent 165,000 students to the United States last year, a 25 per cent jump in a year. According to the new data from Blumenthal's group, students from Nepal and Vietnam are also among the fastest-growing groups coming to the US. For more education news, click here
