Indian students got 77,799 F1 visas compared to 46,145 for the Chinese in January-July 2022
As the Covid travel curbs eased, Indian students got more US F1 Visa than the Chinese, who usually take the lead, in the first seven months of 2022, according to latest State Department data.
Prior to the pandemic, Indian students helped add $8 billion to US coffers in 2019, about half of the $16 billion provided by the Chinese. USA earned a total of about $44 billion in 2019 from international students.
Read: India sends more students to US; China still tops with fewer (April 7, 2022)
From January to July 2022, Indian students got 77,799 F1 visas, while the Chinese got 46,145 tipping the scales in India’s favor, according to State Department data. In 2021, 99,431 Chinese students got F1 Visas with India coming second with 87,258 students.
Though the current population of Chinese students in the USA is still far higher than India, their numbers have dwindled post pandemic. With 16,865 students in 2021, South Korea features the 3rd highest student country for the USA after China and India.
Read: US remains most favored destination for Indian students: survey (February 11, 2022)
In 2020 USA received fewer students mainly attributed to Covid-19. Just 4,853 students came from China while 21,908 students from India were given F1 Visas.
In 2021 the situation from Covid-19 improved dramatically and so the number of international students who procured F1 Visas more than doubled.
Read: Indian students this year get twice as many US visas as China: Report (August 30, 2022)
After the USA the next most attractive country for international students is the United Kingdom. Here too the number of education visas issued to Indian students far exceeded the number of Chinese. As many as 117,965 Indian students were issued UK visas out of a total of 486,868 education visas.
This showed an 89% rise in student visa share for Indians. The Chinese got 115,056 visas from the UK. When comparing the situation to 2019, the Indians were 21% higher for study visas, whereas the Chinese saw a dip of 4% in UK student visas in 2020.