By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

The number of Korean students in the U.S. is steadily increasing, according to an annual report by the Institute of International Education (I.I.E.). During the 2007-2008 school year, U.S. universities had about 69,000 South Korean students, an 11 percent increase from a year earlier.

Korea ranked third in the number of students it sends to American higher education institutes behind India and China. India remained top with 94,563, up 13 percent from the previous year; followed by China with 81,127, an increase of 20 percent. Japan had 33,974 students and Canada ― the only non-Asian country in the top five ― had 29,051.

Asia was again the number one region for sending students to the U.S. California turned out to be the most popular state for foreign students with 84,800 enrolled there, up 9 percent; followed by New York with 69,844, up 6 percent; and Texas with 51,824, up 6 percent.

New York City continues to be the leading host city for international students, with 54,861 enrolled in schools in the area, up 6 percent. Los Angeles came second with 38,825 international students, up 8 percent. The University of Southern California hosted the largest number of international students for the seventh consecutive year with 7,189, followed by New York University with 6,404 and Columbia University with 6,297. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign came in fourth with 5,933 and Purdue University fifth with 5,772.

The most popular fields of study for international students in the U.S. were business management at 20 percent, followed by engineering at 17 percent.

International students contributed more than $15.5 billion to the U.S. economy last year, with 67 percent of all international students' primary funding coming from sources outside of the U.S. The I.I.E. with the support from the State Department has conducted the annual statistical survey of international students in the U.S. since 1949 to measure global academic mobility.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr