US sees change in proportion of graduate students from China and India

Chronicle of Higher Education : A report issued by the Council of Graduate Schools showed an increase of 40% in the number of Indian students enrolling in graduate programs in the US in 2013. In contrast, the increase of just 5% in the number of Chinese students is a significant drop after seven straight years of double-digit growth. The causes for both changes aren’t clear. Indian enrollment is historically variable due to a range of economic factors, such as the dollar–rupee exchange rate. That’s because Indian students tend to focus on master’s programs that they pay for themselves. Chinese students, however, tend to enter doctoral programs and it may be that available funding for those programs has been reduced due to sequester-related cuts. Other countries that experienced significant changes in enrollment in US graduate schools are Brazil, which has increased funding for its students to study internationally, and South Korea, which continued its trend of decreasing enrollment.