Chapter: 2 Science & Engineering Indicators 93

Asian Students in U.S. Universities

Over 400,000 foreign students--3 percent of total U.S. enrollment--attend U.S. institutions of higher education. Over half of these students (55 percent) come from Asia: In 1991, 43 percent of undergraduate foreign students were Asian, and 65 percent of the graduate (IIE 1991). One reason for this concentration is that the sharp jump in the value of Asian currencies relative to the U.S. dollar has greatly increased the number of Asian students with the financial ability to study in this country (SRS 1993c).

Asians tend to major in S& E. Over 80 percent of the baccalaureates obtained in the United States by Asian natives were in S& E in 1991 (SRS 1993c). Japanese students are the single exception to this trend. (See text table 2-8.) Over half of the Japanese students enrolled in undergraduate programs at U.S. universities in 1989/90 were in non-S& E fields.

At the graduate level, too, a large percentage of Asian students in U.S. universities are enrolled in S& E programs. For example, 96 percent of Taiwanese students and 93 percent of Indian students were in S& E fields in 1989/90. Asian countries have encouraged this focus on science and engineering by providing scholarships for study abroad in these fields.

U.S. higher education institutions are also a significant source for the doctoral education of Asian students, educating--based on data from China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan--approximately one-quarter of Asian Ph.D. recipients. U.S. universities provide more engineering doctorates to Indian students than does India, and more natural science and engineering doctorates to Taiwanese students than does Taiwan. About half of South Korea's doctoral degrees, and one-third of China's, are from U.S. universities. On the other hand, Japanese scientists and engineers obtain only a small fraction of their doctorates in the United States. (See figure 2-17.)

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