Indian students enrolled in US on F-1 visa surges to 194,438 in March 2016

The number of Indian students who have enrolled in American universities and colleges on either academic or vocational status, touched 194,438 in March 2016, a rise from 148,360 in March 2015, registering an increase of 31.1 percent, according to statistics released by SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Program), on 29 April.

The report, entitled ‘SEVIS by the Numbers’, is a quarterly report tracking foreign student movements. SEVIS is a government organisation under the aegis of US ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Homeland Security Investigations.

As of now, there are close to 1.2 million international students studying either on an academic or vocational status in American institutions.

The data gathered from SEVIS on 7 March, 2016, reveals that enrolment of international students at US schools rose by 6.2 percent this year when compared to March 2015. March 2016 witnessed 8,687 US schools having SEVIS certification to enrol foreign students, a fall of three percent from 2015.

The report further states that 82 percent of the Indian students enrolled both in the academic and vocational status pursue education in STEM disciplines – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. India has reportedly the highest number of STEM students in the US.

About 69 percent of students applying for academic or vocational status from China pursue mathematics or statistics. Report from ICE showed that 40 percent of foreign students in the US – numbering around 479,000 – were pursuing studies in STEM disciplines.

About 417,000 international students from Asia pursued STEM studies this year, an increase of 17 percent compared to that in March 2015.

This should encourage students in India wanting to pursue higher education in STEM disciplines to apply to American students in the following semesters.