The tables give information on the number of overseas students in Canada and the USA based on the countries they originated from in 2002 and 2003. Overall, the USA had a significantly larger total number of international students than Canada did in both years, but there was a comparably higher percentage of increase in the figures for foreign students in Canada, with the number of Chinese students showing the largest rise between the two years. It is also clear that the preponderance of international students was Chinese in Canada, while it was Indians who outnumbered the other nationalities in the USA and were also the only nationality to follow a falling trend.
In 2002, the figure for Chinese students led the chart at 5400, closely followed by 5000 Americans, whereas there were only 2100 Indians studying in Canada, all of which totaled 59,870 international students. In the next year, the total figure equaled 70,004 students from overseas, a 17 percent increase from the previous year’s figure, with China and India experiencing the most significant changes of 45% and 35%, rising to 7850 and 2835, respectively. The number of students from the USA increased only by 9 percent, which translates to 450 more students, or 5,450 in total.
The figures for international students in the USA recorded smaller variations, but their numbers were dramatically higher than those who studied in Canada between 2002 and 2003. There was a 2% increase in the total number of foreign students in America, from 581,600 to 592,230, roughly 8 or 9 times as many as that of Canada. In 2002, Indian students amounted to 200,000, more than half of the total figure, with Chinese as the distant runner-up (110,000) and Canadians at the last spot, at 31,000. While the number of Indian students dropped by 9% to 182,000 in 2013, the other two countries grew slightly: China by 6% to 116,600 and Canada by 7% to 33,170.