The number of international students attending a college in the United States jumped by 12% last year, with 26,450 foreign students choosing a Georgia school.
In Georgia, international student numbers grew by 5.6% last year. Statewide, Georgia Tech continued to enroll the most international students, followed by Savannah College of Art and Design and Georgia State University.
U.S. universities hosted just over 1,057,000 international students during the 2022-2023 school year, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Institute of International Education.
The agencies said that’s the fastest growth rate in more than four decades and marks a continuing bounce back from an enrollment and travel slump during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2020-2021 academic year, the first full school year after the pandemic’s start, international enrollment numbers fell to about 914,000 students.
Officials said preliminary numbers show international enrollment continuing to climb this fall by about 8%, based on a smaller survey of U.S. colleges.
“Over one million international students studying in the U.S. reflects a strong rebound, with the number approaching pre-pandemic levels. This reinforces that the U.S. remains the destination of choice for international students wishing to study abroad, as it has been for more than a century,” said Allan E. Goodman, CEO of the Institute of International Education, in a written statement.
Georgia Tech enrolled 7,671 international students in 2022-2023. That’s down 4.6% from the previous year, though the school remained among the top 25 colleges in the United States with the highest number of international students, according to the report.
Savannah College of Art and Design had 4,342 international students last year, followed by Georgia State with 3,584; Emory University with 3,060; University of Georgia with 2,541; and Kennesaw State University with 1,300.
Just over 26% of international students at Georgia schools are from China, followed by 24.8% from India. South Korea, Nigeria and Taiwan rounded out the top 5 leading places of origin.
Overall, China sends the most students to the U.S. to study. Nearly 290,000 Chinese students learned here last year, down 0.2% from the previous year. International enrollment of students from India soared in 2022-2023, jumping 35% to 268,923 total students.
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