NEW YORK, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Foreign student enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities rose 5 percent in the 2010-11 school year from the year before, to a record 723,277, a report said.
For the second straight year, more foreign students came from China than from any other country -- 157,558, or nearly 22 percent of the total, says the Open Doors report by the Institute of International Education and the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
India placed second in the total number of foreign students studying at the U.S. schools, with 103,895, or about 14 percent of the total, down 1 percent, while 73,351, or about 10 percent, came from South Korea, up 2 percent.
Canada, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Japan each accounted for about 3 percent to about 4 percent of the total.
Women accounted for about 45 percent of all the foreign students at U.S. schools.
International students contributed more than $21 billion to the U.S. economy in 2010-11 through expenditures on tuition and living expenses, the report said, citing U.S. Department of Commerce statistics.
Foreign students' numbers increased in most states, with California, New York, Texas, Massachusetts and Illinois attracting the most.
For the 10th straight year, the University of Southern California drew more foreign students, 8,615, than any other school. USC was followed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 7,991; New York University, 7,988; Purdue University, 7,562; Columbia University, 7,297; and the University of California-Los Angeles, 6,249. Harvard University drew 5,748 foreign students.
Top fields of study for foreign students included business and management at 22 percent of students, followed by engineering, math and computer science, physical and life sciences and social sciences.
