N.C. State has the largest international student population in the state, according to recent data.
About 4,000 foreign students attend N.C. State, according to an annual census by the nonprofit Institute of International Education. Second to N.C. State is Duke University and its medical center, followed by the University of North Carolina campuses in Chapel Hill, Charlotte and Greensboro.
North Carolina’s colleges and universities saw an increase of nearly 9 percent in the number of international students during the last academic year, according to the IIE. The nonprofit worked with the State Department to survey both public and private colleges and universities across the United States.
Currently, about 29 percent of the students pursuing a masters or doctoral degree at N.C. State are international students. Though this number seems high, the number of applicants and enrollees has only increased by 4 percent in the last two years and the ratio of international graduate students has stayed about the same in comparison to U.S. citizens during the course of five years, according to Richard Liston, assistant dean of the graduate school.
There is no specific limit to the number of international students N.C. State accepts but similar limitations to those seen in the case of U.S. citizens, such as program capacity, apply to the number of international students accepted, Liston said.
Katherine Kirkeby Thomsen, a graduate exchange student from Denmark pursuing her MBA, said she heard a lot of good things about the school and was particularity attracted to the opportunity of living at the University.
Shravan Gadeppanavar, who is pursuing his masters in computer networks, said he chose to come to N.C. State from India because of the curriculum and the computer network classes. Although receiving his degree will only take two years, Gadeppanavar said he plans to stay in the U.S. after graduation and work with NetApp, a company working on storage solutions.
About 40 percent of international N.C. State graduates choose to stay in the U.S., according to Liston. Liston said that this isn’t that different from out-of-state students.
“If you look at the data on other students that are not from North Carolina that graduate from State with a graduate degree, about the same percentage of those stay here as well.” Liston said. “So it is unfair to report that the number of internationals staying is disproportionate. The reason they stay is because they’re highly valuable to the economy of North Carolina. I think N.C. State graduate students are in demand in general.”
Thomsen said that although she is returning to Denmark to graduate, she hopes to return and work in the U.S. when her visa allows her to do so.
According to The Republic, about 4 percent of 21 million students enrolled in higher-education institutes come from abroad. Of these international students, two-thirds are paying the education costs out-of-pocket, making higher education one of the U.S.’s top service sector exports.
However, neither Thomsen nor Gadeppanavar are paying tuition completely unaided. Thomsen said her home university is paying for her schooling at N.C. State while she pays for her living costs, and Gadeppanavar said he received an education loan but is also paying some of the cost personally.
According to Liston, students who are academically competitive may qualify to work on sponsored scientific research as part of the academic requirements of their degrees and, in such cases, the cost of attending N.C. State is covered by these research funds.
The Huffington Post reported that China, India and South Korea were the three major countries of origin of international students studying in the U.S.
Of international graduate students studying at N.C. State, about 70 percent came from India or China. The Republic of Korea, Turkey and Iran represent about 3 – 4 percent of international graduate students each, according to Liston.
In total, N.C. State hosted 2,959 international students, or 8.6 percent of the entire student population, in 2012. Of these, only 537 were undergraduate students making the remaining 2,422 graduate students, according to N.C. State’s fall 2012 enrollment report.
The greatest number of international graduate students are enrolled in electrical engineering, computer engineering and computer science, according to Liston.
Though an increasing number of international students may be criticized by some, Liston said that there is not an effort to either increase or decrease the number of international students studying at N.C. State.
“It’s a function of supply and demand,” Liston said.