Foreign students fuel graduate school enrolment rise

 

International students continue to fuel enrolment growth at US graduate schools, a study out this week by the US Council of Graduate Schools found.

The council reported a 3.5% one-year increase overall in first-time graduate enrolment last autumn, the largest since 2009, including an 11.2% increase among temporary residents and a 1.3% increase among domestic students. Graduate programmes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, fields continue to have particularly high concentrations of foreign students, it found.

From 2004 to 2014 international students accounted for more than two-thirds of the growth in first-time enrolment headcounts at US graduate institutions, suggesting that they are becoming increasingly critical to US graduate education.

“The increase in overall enrolments is good news, but the disparity between US and international growth is a cause for concern,” Council President Suzanne Ortega said. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employers will add nearly 2.4 million jobs requiring a graduate or even more advanced degree between 2012 and 2022.

The findings are based on surveys of more than 600 institutions, who reported receiving more than 2 million applications, extending more than 850,000 offers of admission and enrolling nearly 480,000 first-time graduates in autumn 2014.

A council analysis of applications by foreign students to specific academic programmes this autumn found that nearly two-thirds were for admission to masters and certificate programmes, challenging a long-held assumption that most are pursuing doctoral degrees.
SOURCE; university world news