After Saudi Arabia and China, which country had the highest year-to-year percentage increase in the number of students in the US?
Iran.
In the 2010-2011 academic year, 5,626 Iranians were studying in the US – an 18.9 percent jump over the year before.
That number reflects a steady incline from a low of fewer than 1,700 students in the late 1990s. But it remains a far cry from the number of Iranians who chose the US for higher education in the days of the shah. In 1979 – the year of the Iranian revolution – 51,310 Iranians were studying on US campuses, putting Iran atop the list of countries sending students to American universities.
Why Iran’s ruling ayatollahs see fit to allow more Iranians to pursue studies in the United States – aka "the Great Satan" – is anyone's guess. But Iran isn't the only anti-American nation to send students here to study. Venezuela, under Hugo Chávez, another international detractor of the US, is also sending more university students to America.
Venezuela has 5,491 students on US campuses, an increase of nearly 11 percent over the previous year. That puts the land of President Chávez just one rung below that of Chavez’s comrade-in-criticism of the US, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
