The bar chart illustrates the international students count for a European university from four countries: China, Japan, America, and Russia. The data covers the years from 2004 to 2008.
Overall, although the number of student applications fluctuated for each country over the period, the highest number of students came from China throughout the time period, followed by Japan and America. Notably, the number of applications from American students increased dramatically in the latter half of the period.
China had the highest number of students applying in every year, with a peak of 27000 in 2004. In 2005, the number of Chinese applications decreased slightly to 24000, before continuing to fall steadily over the remaining period, reaching 20000 in 2006 and 22000 in 2007. Finally, in 2008, the number of applications from China stabilized slightly at 23000.
Japan had the second highest number of applicants in 2004, at 16000 students. The number of applicants rose to 18000 in 2005, before decreasing steadily each subsequent year. A significant drop in applicants took place in 2008, falling to 10000. In contrast to these trends, applications from American students increased significantly. While the number of applications was only 15000 in 2004, this figure had fallen to 10000 by 2005. However, a marked increase began in 2006, reaching 12000; this continued to grow by 2007 to 12000 and culminated in 2008 when the number of American applications surpassed both Japan and China at 28000. Finally, the number of students from Russia remained relatively low and stable throughout the time frame, with only minor fluctuations around a base of 3000. The only significant drop was in 2006, when the number of Russian applications decreased to 2000.