The annual report of the Institute of International Education (IIE) shows that the number of Vietnamese students studying at the universities in the US in 2009-2010 increased by 2.3 percent in comparison with the previous academic year. The increase is just equal to 1/20 of the galloping growth rates in the previous years

The modest growth rate

IIE Vietnam believes that the main reason behind the modest increase of the number of Vietnamese students in the US is the economic downturn which occurred at the time when students were preparing applications for studying. However, Vietnam still ranks ninth among nations which have the highest numbers of students studying in the US. The country also leads South East Asian countries in terms of the number of students studying in the US.

In the past three years, the number of Vietnamese students in the US had increased sharply by 40 percent per annum, putting Vietnam on the list of the nations with the highest numbers of students studying in the US.

Lan Anh, a student of the Hanoi University of Foreign Trade, said that she is planning to go abroad to attend a training course for a MBA degree.

“The US and the UK are the best destinations. However, I may have to go to another country which has more reasonable expenses. My family’s business has been going not very well, while the Vietnam dong has depreciated dramatically against the dollar,” she complained.

Vietnam is not the only country witnessing a decreasing rate of the number of students studying abroad. The number of international students going to the US last academic year only slightly increased and the increase proved to be much lower than the average 15 percent growth rate in the years before.

More than a half of the 25 countries which have students studying in the US have seen a negative growth rate in the number of students this year. Japan, the country which suffered the biggest impacts of the economic crisis, has seen the number of students decrease by 15 percent.

Meanwhile, China, a country that obtained high economic growth rate despite the crisis, and replaced Japan to become the second biggest economy in the world, has seen the number of students in the US increase sharply by 30 percent.

The US, though only witnessing modest growth rates in its number of visiting students, is still leading the countries in attracting international students. 700,000 international went to the US to study last year. Experts say that the figure shows the attraction of the university education system of the country.

Non-traditional markets attract US students

Meanwhile, the economic crisis has also led to the fact that the number of US students going studying abroad in 2008-2009 decreased slightly with 260,000 students.

However, the number of students going to countries which are not the popular destinations for studying, has increased significantly. Nineteen out of 25 destinations for US students are countries where English is not the main language. Vietnam, for example, attracted 700 American students last year, an increase of three percent over the year before.

This is the golden opportunity for developing countries to attract American students, because education is considered a high grade service which can attract money for the countries.

According to the US Department of Commerce, every year, international students in the country pay nearly $20 billion to the economy. Besides, the country can also attract other large sums of money, when parents and relatives of the overseas students fly to the US to visit their children.

In the crisis, the universities in the US are trying to attract more international students and compete with other markets which require lower costs, such as Australia or Singapore.

Lan Huong