The U.S. hosts the most international students of any country, more than twice as many as the next biggest host, the United Kingdom.
There were more than 1 million international students in the U.S. in 2016-2017, according to data from the Institute of International Education. A total of 439,019 of them were studying at the undergraduate level.While their reasons for pursuing U.S. study are varied, international students display certain trends in what draws them to particular colleges and universities.When it comes to academics, engineering, business and management, and math and computer science are the three most popular fields of study among international students, according to IIE, making schools that are strong in these areas more attractive.
Other institutions are appealing because they offer hefty chunks of institutional financial aid to students from abroad to help them afford the increasing cost of U.S. higher education. This is important because most international students are not eligible for federal financial aid.Students from abroad may also be drawn to schools that already have sizable international student populations because of the additional social support such peers can offer.
Among the 295 ranked National Universities that reported their percentages of international students to U.S. News in an annual survey, the 10 with the highest figures are private. National Universities are schools that offer a wide range of undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees.International students made up 6.2 percent of the undergraduate student body, on average, among all the schools that reported these data.The Florida Institute of Technology had the highest percentage of international undergrads – 32.9 – while St. John Fisher College in New York had the lowest at 0.1 percent.Below is a list of the 10 National Universities with the highest percentages of undergraduate international students during the 2016-2017 school year. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
