Every year, the Institute of International Education releases data it compiles about U.S. students studying abroad and international students studying in the United States. The new dataset came out earlier this week. As always, these numbers are interesting.
You can read various versions of the report here, but we’ve compiled a few of our favorite statistics below.
- International students studying in the U.S.
- 819,644 students studied in the U.S. last year (up 7.2% from last year)
- International students now make up 3.9% of all students in higher education.
- The most popular states were California, New York and Texas.
- In California alone, these international students brought in nearly $3.6 billion dollars in estimated expenditures.
- The most common fields of study were Business/Management and Engineering.
- U.S. students studying abroad
- This year’s data show that there were 283,332 U.S. students studied abroad for credit (up 3.4% from the previous year).
- The most popular destinations were U.K, Italy, Spain, France and China.
- Roughly 14% of graduating undergraduates will have studied abroad as part of their degree program.
- The most common program length was a short (less than 8 weeks) summer program.
If you’re interested in studying abroad, one book you’ll definitely want to check out is available via the IIE. It’s called “A Student Guide to Study Abroad.” Written by three study abroad experts and co-published by the IIE and American Institute for Foreign Study, it contains valuable advice about how to prepare, what to do while you’re there, and how to best use that experience in crafting your future.
