25 US universities with the most international students

New York, California, Pennsylvania and Texas each claim three universities in the top 25 institutions in the United States by the number of international students.

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Carly Minsky

November 24 2015

International students in the United States tend to concentrate in three states: New York, California and Texas.

So the results of the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors 2015 report, revealing the 25 US universities with the most international students, are not particularly surprising.

New York, California and Texas each claim three universities in the top 25, as does Pennsylvania.

- The full list of American universities in the World University Rankings

The highest number of international students at any university in the US can be found at York University, where more than 30 per cent of the student population hail from abroad.

At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, international students make up more than half of all students on campus.

In total, just over 200,000 international students attend these top 25 universities, representing more than 20 per cent of all international students in the US.

The majority of these 25 universities are also counted among the best 100 universities in the world, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015-16.

Rank	World University Rank	Institution	City	State	Number of international students	Percentage of international students
1	30	York University	New York	NY	13,178	31%
2	68	University of Southern California	Los Angeles	CA	12,334	34%
3	15	Columbia University	New York	NY	11,510	46%
4	189	Arizona State University	Tempe	AZ	11,330	14%
5	36	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	Champaign	IL	11,223	26%
6	201-250	Northeastern University	Boston	MA	10,559	57%
7	=113	Purdue University	West Lafayette	IN	10,230	26%
8	16	University of California, Los Angeles	Los Angeles	CA	10,209	27%
9	=99	Michigan State University	East Lansing	MI	8,146	18%
10	32	University of Washington	Seattle	WA	8,035	18%
11	64	Boston University	Boston	MA	7,860	32%
12	75	Pennsylvania State University	University Park	PA	7,728	17%
13	21	University of Michigan	Ann Arbor	MI	7,423	18%
14	=90	Ohio State University	Columbus	OH	7,121	14%
15	201-250	University of Texas at Dallas	Richardson	TX	7,064	43%
16	201-250	Indiana University	Bloomington	IN	7,009	11%
17	=65	University of Minnesota	Minneapolis	MN	6,984	15%
18	13	University of California, Berkeley	Berkeley	CA	6,874	19%
19	201-250	University at Buffalo	Buffalo	NY	6,852	27%
20	=193	Texas A&M University	College Station	TX	6,690	13%
21	22	Carnegie Mellon University	Pittsburgh	PA	6,198	52%
22	17	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	PA	6,167	30%
23	=120	University of Florida	Gainesville	FL	6,148	12%
24	50	University of Wisconsin-Madison	Madison	WI	5,977	15%
25	46	University of Texas at Austin	Austin	TX	5,947	12%

Note: Different datasets have been used to calculate percentages for international students and figures may vary from international student percentages that appear in the World University Rankings 2015-16