When international students search for their dream study abroad destination, proximity to metropolitan areas matters. Data from the 2021 Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange indicates that students want to study in locations that provide an enriching cultural experience and access to strong job opportunities.
Most Popular Metropolitan Areas in the US
More international students are pursuing education in densely populated areas now than ever before. In fact, the proportion of international students living in the top 10 metropolitan areas in the US increased every academic year from 2011/12 to 2018/19. In 2020/21, four in every 10 international students attended an institution based in a top 10 metropolitan area.
New York-Newark-Jersey City ranked number one. The area hosted a total of 84,972 students in the 2020/21 academic year and accounted for over 9% of all international students in the US. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim and Boston-Cambridge-Newton rounded out the top three, each accounting for over 6% of all international students in the US.
More International Students Targeting Major Metro Areas
The number of students studying in major metropolitan areas has risen steadily over the past 10 years. From 2011/12 to 2018/19, the number of international students hosted in the top 10 metropolitan areas increased by 53%, rising from 275,150 students in 2011/12 to 419,781 in 2018/19. But the most interesting nugget of data here is that the proportion of international students pursuing education in metropolitan areas is also growing.
In the 2011/12 academic year, 47% of international students attended school in a top 20 metropolitan area. Last year, the top 20 metropolitan areas hosted 52% of international students. That increase of 5 percentage points represents an additional 45,000 international students who are selecting schools based in the US’s largest metros.
Student Places of Origin for Top Metropolitan Areas
While students from India, China, and South Korea account for the majority of international students in the US’s largest metro areas, there are some interesting outliers in the data.
Perhaps the most surprising trend is the concentration of Nepali students studying in the Dallas area. One in every 10 international students in Dallas last year was from Nepal, making Nepali students the third-largest international student population in the Dallas area.
Nepal doesn’t show up among the top 10 source countries for any other top 15 metropolitan area in the US, and it accounts for only 1.2% of the US’s international student population total. Yet one in five Nepali students in the US last year studied in Dallas.
Cultural Ties Attract Smaller-Market Students
Why is this? Students and their families naturally gravitate to locations that offer them the strongest sense of culture and community.
In Dallas’s case, the city became the top area for Nepali and Nepal-born Bhutanese refugees to settle following the Bhutanese refugee crisis in the early 1990s. Today, the Dallas area is home to the Nepali Cultural and Spiritual Center, a booming Nepali food scene, and the largest concentration of Nepali immigrants in the United States.
Other surprise countries in the top 10 rankings of major metropolitan areas include Vietnamese students accounting for more than 10% of all international students in Houston, Saudi Arabia squeaking into the top three for Phoenix and Washington, D.C., and the unusually high number of students from Kuwait studying in S
The common denominator between all of these trends is an established, deep-rooted community living in these areas. Students from India, China, and South Korea can be fairly confident that there will be networks of fellow expats waiting for them in most large metro areas in the US. Those from smaller markets need to select their study abroad destination more carefully if they want to have access to the familiar culture, food, and languages of home.
Institutions, take note. If you are based in an area that has strong representation of certain nationalities, leverage those community ties when recruiting students from those countries.
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