53 percent of all international students in 2022/23 were from China and India, comparable to the prior year. However, the market share for each place of origin has shifted, with 27 percent of students from China and 25 percent of students from India, in comparison to 33 percent from China and 18 percent from India in 2017/18.
China remained the top-sending country in 2022/23, with 289,526 students studying in the U.S. (-0.2%).
India, the second largest sending country, reached an all-time high of 268,923 international students in 2022/23, an increase of 35%.
STEM is still the major chosen by many international students, especially the two majors Mathematics and Computer Science. However, the number of Indian students choosing these two majors is more than 110,000, while China's is only about 67,100.
In addition, India leads in the number of students participating in the OPT program (post-graduation work in STEM, lasting up to 36 months), with 69,000 people (an increase of 1.3%). The number of students enrolled in graduate programs also increased by 62.6%, reaching nearly 166,000 students. These are all record numbers.
