Indian Students Surge Past China in US University Enrollment: A Recent Shift

TL;DR

The number of Indian students enrolling in US universities has surged, positioning India to potentially surpass China as the leading source of international students in the US. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian student enrollment increased by 35% to 268,923, while Chinese student numbers saw a slight decline of 0.2%, remaining around 290,000. Indian students, particularly in STEM fields, are attracted by advanced educational opportunities and strong demand for skilled labor in the US.

This shift reflects deeper trends, with India’s growing middle class and favorable US visa policies driving the surge. In contrast, US-China relations and restrictive policies under the Trump administration have dampened Chinese enrollment growth. As US universities face an “enrollment cliff,” the need for international students, especially from India, has intensified.

Moving forward, US institutions are expected to continue prioritizing Indian students to meet labor demands, particularly in technology sectors, and to compensate for declining domestic enrollments. This article elaborates more on this growing trend giving Indian students an easy access to study abroad and potential career opportunities.

The July 11, 2024 newsletter of the Washington DC-based Council of Graduate Schools noted that “In the past two years, Indian nationals have surpassed Chinese nationals in applications and first-time enrollment to graduate programs in the United States. Close to 60 percent of the Indian first-time enrollees over 2021 and 2022 are not directly attributable to a COVID-rebound since most Indian first-time enrollees admitted in 2021 and 2022 were not deferrals from the height of the pandemic in 2020.”

These data were soon reproduced in several Indian publications (including the Indian Express, the Hindu, the Times of India and Hindustan Times).

If studying abroad is taken to indicate efforts to expand a base of professionals educated up to the latest and most advanced levels, then figures cited by the CGS and subsequent Indian media, give the impression that China is pulling back in that effort, while India is accelerating. Even if we say that the admissions statistics reflect the choices and commitments of individual students, the data nevertheless hold national implications for India and China … and for the US.

What are the figures on which the CGS based its assertion?

We hit our first stumbling block when we go looking for exact and up-to-date numbers and percentages. Putting data in table form makes it clear that different sources provide different figures.

While sources disagree on exact figures and percentages, they all note that in terms of RATE OF GROWTH, the number of Indians studying in the USA has surged past the RATE OF GROWTH in the number of Chinese studying in there.

Indian Students: The number of Indian students in the US increased by 35% from 2022 to 2023, reaching a record high of 268,923 students   [Reported in India Times, Nov 14, 2023

Chinese Students: The number of Chinese students in the US saw a slight decrease of 0.2% from 2022 to 2023, with 372,532 students in total  [Reported in Statista, Feb 9, 2024]

The reports are NOT saying that, at present, the absolute number of Indian students studying in the USA has surpassed the absolute number of Chinese students studying in the USA.

We can’t be absolutely sure of the precise numbers but the majority of sources discovered on Google agree that the number of Chinese students is approximately 290,000 and the number of Indian students is approximately 269,000.  Simple subtraction tells us that as of 2023-24, the number of Chinese students exceeds the number of Indian students by approximately 21,000.

All sources agree that the majority of students of foreign origin studying in the USA are also enrolled in post graduate programmes. An individual might complete a post graduate degree in as little as two years or slog on for around eight years to attain a PhD. Assuming that Indian student admissions continue to surge and Chinese student admissions continue to decline, then in just a few years, the absolute number of Indian students on US campuses will indeed surpass the number of Chinese students.

A November, 2023 article in the Hindu Businessline offers a wealth of statistics on international student trends in the US in 2023. In the table below we extract the Businessline statistics and augment them with data gleaned from other sources.

As the incoming classes of new international students, particularly graduate students, continue to grow post-pandemic, the number of OPT students can be expected to increase in the future.

The fairly sudden decline in the number of Chinese students is no less striking than the surge in Indian student numbers.

What underlies this shift?

Writing in the National Law Review, Cynthia Liao states, “Chinese students make up the majority of international students in the United States. However, the number of Chinese students in U.S. universities has dropped from a high of 370,000 in 2019 to about 290,000 today.  Part of the drop has been attributed to the Trump Administration’s 2020 executive order suspending entry of certain students and researchers from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). That proclamation applies to Chinese nationals in F or J status (other than undergraduates) who were associated with an entity in the PRC that implements or supports the PRC’s “military-civil fusion strategy.” The executive order started to chill among Chinese graduate students and researchers who feared discrimination or being denied entry at first or after travel abroad.

However, one of the first acts of the Biden administration was to rescind the Trump strictures on Chinese students.  Of course, that has not entirely swept away fears of campus “espionage”.  As recently as June of this year, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, was quoted on NBC News as saying that not enough Americans were studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He agreed that the U.S. needed to recruit more international students for those fields, but from India — an increasingly important U.S. security partner — not China. Campbell is not alone in his opinion.  Deteriorating U.S.-China relations have fanned fears of theft of U.S. expertise and to some extent derailed scientific cooperation and subjected Chinese students to suspicion.

From the point of view of American colleges and universities, every international student, regardless of origin, is a valued paying customer.  College and university administrations are keenly aware of the looming “Enrollment cliff”.  This refers to US demographics: the number of US high school graduates will peak in 2025-26 and then decline for years to come — posing severe challenges to educational institutions at all levels.  Failure to make up the enrollment gap with international students will starve departments and research labs and make it impossible to subsidize the cost of educating domestic students.  As it is, many young people in America are increasingly wary of high cost degrees and skeptical about just how much they actually pay off.

Just how seriously American colleges and universities view the future is apparent from their increasingly common presence at education fairs in India.  Indeed, they are spending lavishly to gain name recognition in India, and fanning farther across the country to recruit in smaller cities and towns, where demand to study abroad is rising.  As for bright Indian students, they know that they are wanted and welcomed abroad, but that does not make the financial or visa challenges less daunting.  India estimates 1.5 million students are studying at universities elsewhere — an eightfold increase since 2012 — with no country attracting more than the US.

America’s shift toward Indian students is visible on campuses like the University of Texas, Dallas, where enrollment from China fell from about 1,200 to 400 over the past four years. Meantime, enrollment from India grew from about 3,000 to 4,400.

What can be expected in the future?

Looking toward the future, it is safe to say that US colleges and universities are going to remain “hungry” for international students for many years to come.  Since demographic trends do not change rapidly, it is certain that the need for international students will remain stable for a long time. Business trends can fluctuate but it is safe to predict an ever-expanding role for technology-oriented manufacturing in the future. 

Industry analysts previously cited in this post agree that America will need more highly knowledgeable and skilled personnel than the domestic talent pool can supply.  The shortfall will have to be met by talent recruited from abroad.  Competent foreign-born graduates of US colleges and universities will have no trouble finding employment in the US.

Stability rarely characterizes politics.  It is probable that the results of America’s forthcoming election will have some impact on that country’s attitudes toward international students in general and students from certain countries in particular.  A clearer picture will emerge after November.