Mobility Stats: Mapping Mobility & Open Doors

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Two international education organisations, Nuffic from the Netherlands and the Washington based Institute of International Education (IIE) published their international student mobility statistics this week. While Open Doors is being published by IIE already since 1948, the Nuffic publication – Mapping Mobility – was published for the first time in 2010. Although Nuffic published international education statistics before, this is the first one solely focused on higher education.

Growth

One finding of the Open Doors report was that the influx of international students into the US continued to grow modestly. Compared to the year before, there were 3% more international students coming to the US for the purpose of study (the vast majority for a full degree). The number of foreign students studying for a full undergraduate or graduate degree in the US (excluding non degree students) in 2009/10 was 568,316. This was almost 3% of the total student population.

In the Netherlands they witnessed a slightly higher growth. In 2009/10, there were 47,226 international degree students in the Netherlands, up 6.3% compared to the year before. Considering that the total student population also increased in the Netherlands, the percentage of foreign students remained stable at 7.4% of the total student population.

If we compare the growth rates between the US and the Netherlands in the past five years, we can observe a growth of over 40% in the Netherlands since 2005-6 and in the US a growth of 15%. (Data based on Table D in fast facts Open Doors and Diagram 06 in Mapping Mobility)

Countries of Origin

Other interesting dynamics are revealed if we look at the countries of origin. We can conclude that the growth in the US in the past year has been caused almost solely by the Chinese international student population. The number of Chinese students in the US increased by almost 30%, now accounting for almost a fifth of the international students in the US. The Netherlands however is much more dependent on a single nation. Germany remains the main source country for foreign students in the Netherlands, now accounting for 44% of all students. The table below shows the main source countries of the US and the Netherlands.

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Destinations

Not surprisingly, the main destinations of these students are institutions of the Dutch border region with Germany. The University of Maastricht tops the list, followed by four universities of applied science in the southern, central and northern provinces bordering with Germany. In the US this obviously shows a much more dispersed pattern. Most internationalised institutions here are the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois (Urbana Champaign), New York University, Purdue and Colombia.

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