Koreans Forms Biggest Student Group in US
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
South Koreans are the largest group of international students in the United States. A total of 103,394 Korean students are studying at higher education institutes in the country as of Jan. 15, 2008, according to data from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the United States.
The country has a total of 978,906 international students and Korean students make up nearly 11 percent of them. India came next with 88,051, followed by China with 72,190, Japan with 41,853, Taiwan with 32,897 and Canada with 31,886.
Korea has seen a growing number of students there since 2004 and has remained as the country with the highest number in consecutive years. Among all international students, business and management is the most popular major, with 60,215 students.
Second language learning came next with 52,257 students, followed by engineering and computer science majors with 27,299 and 22,728, respectively.
By state, California, New York, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois and Florida have the highest number of active students. These six states host 51percent of all foreign students.
SEVIS came online in 2003 to track and monitor the status and activities of non-immigrants and exchange visitors who enter the United States and provides statistics every quarter.