Troubling Signs On Foreign Student Applications

Helle Dale / August 27, 2009

International graduate students are cooling on the United States a new study released this week by the The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) shows. Offers of admission from U.S. graduate schools to prospective international students decreased 3% from 2008 to 2009, the first decline since 2004. More than half of responding institutions reported a decrease in international offers of admission, a decline that is founded on a major drop of 16 percent declines in offers to students from both India and South Korea. (Overall numbers would have been even lower had not Chinese students continued to show an increase in admissions for the fourth consecutive year.) This drop also meant a drop in math and science applications, which traditionally attract 61% of foreign graduate students. (more…)