Here are some key takeaways from new student-visa data
American colleges are experiencing a flood of Indian students this fall, while the number of new Chinese students, long the leading source of international enrollments, took a precipitous dive.
U.S. visa issuances to Chinese students in the critical months of May through August fell 45 percent compared with the same period in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of State visa data.
Still, the total number of student visas issued for the fall of 2022 was up slightly from a year ago, signaling a continuing post-pandemic recovery in international enrollments. The main reason: surging demand from India. More than 84,000 student visas were issued to Indian students over the summer — 45 percent more visas than during the same four months last year and a staggering 148 percent more than during that span in 2019.
These key months account for the majority of annual student visas issued.
The visa data paint the clearest, most current picture of international-student trends this fall. You can read the full analysis from my colleague Dan Bauman, a data reporter at The Chronicle, and me here. But let me share a few observations:
First, we wanted to compare visa numbers for the current academic year with same period in 2019 in order to filter out any possible noise caused by pent-up demand due to the pandemic. That proved particularly important for China, where visa issuances for last fall were slightly higher than they were before Covid-19. It now seems apparent that a significant share of those visas went to students who had deferred admission. For India, however, there’s a clear growth trajectory that can’t be chalked up to Covid backlogs.
The surge in visas going to Indian students since 2019 more than makes up for the decline in the number of visas to Chinese students over the same time. American consulates issued about 37,000 fewer visas to Chinese students for this academic year than they did in the same period before the pandemic, while 51,000 more visas were awarded to Indian students.
Still, China remains the largest source of total international students in the United States, with an edge of about 10,000 students over India. That’s because visa issuances primarily measure the number of new students in the United States.
The profile of the typical Indian student is different from that of the average student from China. About half of all Chinese students are undergraduates, while three-quarters of Indian students come for graduate study, primarily for master’s degree or certificate programs. More than two-thirds of Indian students study computer science or engineering, while Chinese students are spread across a broader number of majors. These differences have implications for academic programs, student-support services, and even the length of time this new crop of students will spend on campus.
In large measure, the visa data document much of what I’ve been told anecdotally by readers on the international-admissions front lines in recent months. Interestingly, I’ve heard a lot of wariness among administrators about the wave of new Indian students to American colleges — one even referred to skyrocketing enrollments as “scary.”
I think this reflects uncertainty about the sustainability of such sweeping enrollment growth, as well as concerns about the wisdom of relying too much on student flows from a single country. Caution about an all-eggs-one-basket approach to international enrollments may be a lasting legacy of the China-student boom.
