Taipei, Nov. 14 (CNA) Taiwanese students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities increased for the third year in a row in the 2017-2018 academic year, rising 4.4 percent from the previous year, according to a U.S. report released Tuesday.
There were a total of 22,454 Taiwanese students enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions in the 2017-2018 academic year, making Taiwan the seventh largest source of international students in the U.S. for a fourth straight year, according to the 2018 Open Doors Report.
Just over two of every five (41.1 percent) Taiwanese students in the U.S. were engaged in graduate studies, while 31 were undergraduates and 20 percent were participating in Optional Practical Training (OPT) programs.
OPT programs allow undergraduate and graduate students with F-1 status to work off-campus in a field directly related to their major area of study.
Meanwhile, the report also noted a continuous increase of U.S. students in Taiwan.
During the 2016-2017 academic year, the number of U.S. students enrolled for academic credit at colleges or universities in Taiwan surpassed the 1,000 mark for the first time, reaching 1,002, an increase of 2.2 percent over the previous year, the report said.
The release of the 2018 Open Doors Report is a part of International Education Week (IEW), a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to promote international educational exchanges Nov. 12-16, 2018.
