India is the number one priority recruitment market in the U.S. for both undergraduate and graduate programs in 2023, a report by the International Educational Exchange (IIE) said. The report is based on responses obtained from 527 U.S. higher educational institutes recorded between April 27 and May 19, 2023.

While China is still a top priority for the majority of the U.S. institutes of higher education, the reprt found that the focus has shifted towards attracting students from other markets, especially India. 77 per cent of them were focused on recruiting students at the graduate level while 57 per cent recruited from the undergraduate level.

The findings concurred with research from the Council of Graduate Schools that indicated that Indian students are driving applications and enrolment growth in the U.S. at the graduate level.

The report mentioned that the other top priority markets after India, at the undergraduate level in the U.S. were Vietnam (48 per cent), South Korea (41 per cent), Brazil (40 per cent), and China (39 per cent). At the graduate level, China ranked 2nd, with fewer mentions (42 per cent) compared to India.

China was the top most country sending its students to the U.S. for higher education, dominating 30.5 per cent of the share of all international students in the country in 2021-2022. However, Indian enrolments recorded a year-over-year leap of 18.9 per cent. Increased Indian applications for graduate programs recorded by CGS research, topped with IIE’s recent report likely suggests that the proportion of Indian students in the U.S. higher education will grow in the next couple of years from the 21 per cent recorded in 2021-22.