The bar chart illustrates how the number of international students varied based on their home country, recorded at an European nation from 2004 to 2008.
Overall, while most countries showed a positive trend, China was the only country that demonstrated a significant drop in the number of students. Moreover, although China ranked first in beginning, the number of USA students ended being the most by the end of the time period.
The data gathered from students of China and USA reported a contrasting trend. The USA’s numbers steadily increased throughout the years, starting at roughly 14,000 students and skyrocketed to nearly 30,000 in the final year, making the USA the country where the most international students came from among the four. Whereas for China, with around 30,000 students starting in 2004, the numbers showed a downward trend, ending with approximately 15,000 in 2008, completely surpassed by the USA’s figure.
Japan and Russia experienced similar trends, with a slightly higher growth rate observed in Japan’s statistics. In 2004, Japan and Russia were consecutively the 3rd and 4th country on the chart, starting off at around 5,600 and 2,500 students respectively. Through the years, the numbers of Japanese saw steady growth and reached the 10,000 mark in the last year. As for Russian students, they decreased slightly in 2005, 2006 and 2007, but recovered their numbers at roughly 3,000 students in the year 2008.