International STEM Graduate Student in the United States Survey 2015

Summary:  View help for Summary The International STEM Graduate Student Survey assesses why international students are coming to the United States for their graduate studies, the challenges they have faced while studying in the US, their future career plans, and whether they wish to stay or leave the US upon graduation. According to the Survey of Earned Doctorates by the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, international students accounted for over 40% of all US doctoral graduates in STEM in 2013. The factors that influence international students' decisions to study in the US and whether they will stay or leave are important to US economic competitiveness. We contacted graduate students (both domestic and international) in STEM disciplines from the top 10 universities ranked by the total number of enrolled international students. We estimate that we contacted approximately 15,990 students. Individuals were asked to taken an online survey regarding their background, reasons for studying in the US, and whether they plan to stay or leave the US upon graduation. We received a total of 2,322 completed surveys, giving us a response rate of 14.5%. 1,535 of the completed were from domestic students and 787 of which were from international students. Raw survey data are presented here.

Survey participants were contacted via Qualtrics to participate in this survey. The Universe of this survey data set pertains to all graduate students (Master's and PhD) in STEM disciplines from the following universities: Columbia University, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, Michigan State University, Northeastern University, Purdue University, University of Southern California, Arizona State University, University of California at Los Angeles, New York University, University of Washington at Seattle. Data are broken into 2 subsets: one for international STEM graduate students and one for domestic STEM graduate students, please see respective files.

Funding Sources:  View help for Funding Sources National Science Foundation (SES 0938099)

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms higher education; [technology; engineering; US immigration; immigration policy; scienc]; graduate students; immigration; STEM; international students; competitiveness; international graduate student; policy; and mathematics

Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States

Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1/5/2015 – 4/30/2015