MONTGOMERY COLLEGE
Office of Institutional Research & Analysis

 Research Brief:
International Students Attending U.S. Colleges & Universities in Fall 2002

A recent publication entitled “Open Doors” published by the Institute of International Education

(http://www.iienetwork.org/) provides a very extensive description of postsecondary international students in the United States in the 2002-3 academic year.  International students are defined by the IIE as “Individuals on a temporary visa who are enrolled for courses in the U.S. and are not immigrants, permanent residents, citizens, resident aliens, or refugees.”

In this report, Montgomery College, with 1,854 international students (using the IIE definition, above) ranks 67^th among the 2,689 colleges who enroll international students.  Southern Cal, NYU, Columbia, Purdue, and Texas have the largest number, and UMCP ranks 14^th with 3,700. MC ranks 6^th among community colleges in number of international students.  The College’s international students represented 8.5 percent of our total student headcount, which places us fourth behind DeAnza (CA) with 9.6 percent, the Houston C.C. system (9.2%), and Santa Monica (CA) with 8.8 percent.

Nationwide, there were 586,323 international students in Fall 2002 – a 0.6% increase from the previous fall; these more than one-half million international students represented 4.6% of all college students.  At community colleges there were 72,494 international students (1.9% of all community college students); at bachelor’s degree institutions, the 187,609 international students represented 2.7% of their students; graduate international students (more than 320,000) were the largest category, and they represented 13.3% of all graduate students.

The largest contributors of international students were Asia (57%), Europe (13%), Latin America (12%), Africa (7%), and the Middle East (6%).  Individual countries represented most were India, China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan – together they sent 45% of U.S. international students in Fall 2002.  At Montgomery College, the largest “countries of origin” were India, Korea, Ethiopia, El Salvador, and Vietnam.

The primary sources of funds for international students were Personal and Family (65.8% of international students), U.S. College or University (21.2%), Foreign Private Sponsor (3.3%), Home Government/University (2.8%), U.S. Private Sponsor (2.5%) and Current Employment (1.9%).