The number of foreign students offered admission to American graduate schools declined 3 percent in 2009, the first drop in five years, says a report on an annual survey by the Council of Graduate Schools.
This year’s decrease in foreign admissions is due, in large part, to double-digit dips in offers of admission to prospective students from two of the largest sending countries, India and Korea. Offers of admissions to students from each of those countries declined by 16 percent, while offers to students from China increased by 13 percent. China, India, and Korea together account for nearly half of all foreign graduate students in the United States.
The drop in foreign admissions—the first since 2004, when delays in issuing visas after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, depressed numbers—will most likely result in a small decline in international graduate-student enrollments this fall. However, first-time enrollment numbers could remain level if a larger-than-usual share of admitted overseas students arrive for classes.
Last year, offers of admission to international students rose by 4 percent.
Perhaps the biggest unknown is financial aid, says Nathan E. Bell, director of research and policy analysis at the council and the report’s author. Budget constraints could limit the size of financial-aid packages and cut off opportunities for foreign students, who must demonstrate that they have money to pay for graduate school to obtain a visa.
At the same time, graduate schools report increased interest from American students. Three-quarters of the institutions surveyed by the council said they experienced an increase in applications from U.S. citizens and permanent residents, while just 55 percent had a bump in international applications.
Similarly, 58 percent of universities increased offers of admission to domestic students, while 45 percent did so for foreign students. In most other years of the survey, the council has not asked institutions about American students.
The surge in American students could turn recent graduate-school trends on their head. For the past several years, growth in first-time graduate enrollment has been driven by international students, says Debra W. Stewart, the council’s president.
It is too soon to tell what impact domestic-student applications will have on this fall’s final enrollment numbers, says Mr. Bell, who hypothesizes that many Americans may have applied to graduate school as a hedge against the poor economy.
Divergence of Trends in China and India
One of the most arresting developments highlighted in the report is the differing trend lines in offers of admission to Chinese and Indian students. For students from China, the rate of growth in such offers largely held steady, slowing only slightly from the 16-percent rise in 2008 to this year’s 13-percent increase. Admission offers to Indian students, meanwhile, grew by 2 percent last year before this year’s sharp drop, while offers to students from South Korea posted a 3-percent drop last year.
Those trends also are reflected in overall student-visa figures. U.S. visas issued to Chinese graduate and undergraduate students from January through June of this year are up 43 percent over the same time last year, according to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, while student-visa issuance in India is down 31 percent, reports the embassy there.
Mr. Bell says that application and enrollment trends generally reflect American institutional efforts as well as government policies and social and economic conditions in students’ home countries.
For example, poor job prospects in China may be driving some of its growth because going abroad for college is seen as a way to gain advantage over other job candidates. By contrast, college recruiters in India say students are staying away from the United States because the job market here is so bad.
And Karen P. DePauw, vice president and dean for graduate education at Virginia Tech and chair of the council’s Board of Directors, suggests that applications from Indian students may have declined less sharply there, by just 2 percent, because of longstanding relationships the institution has with Indian universities and faculty members.
Indeed, institutions with large numbers of international graduate students were more likely to increase offers of admission to foreign students than those with smaller numbers, the report says. Offers of admission increased by 4 percent at universities that are among the 10 largest in terms of institutional graduate enrollment, in contrast with the overall 3 percent decline.
Master’s-level institutions experienced a larger drop in international admissions offers, of 9 percent, than did doctoral institutions, which reduced offers by 2 percent. In each of three of the most popular fields of study for foreign students—engineering, physical sciences, and business—admissions offers declined by at least 4 percent.
The report, “Findings From the 2009 CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey, Phase II: Final Applications and Initial Offers of Admission,” follows an earlier study on initial application numbers. The council will release a final survey, of actual enrollment figures, this fall.
Of the council’s member schools, 253 responded to the survey, including nine of the 10 institutions that enroll the largest number of international graduate students.
