Our Foreign Student Series continues with a report this monthfrom the Institute of International Education. The report says thenumber of foreign students in the United States during the lastschool year decreased by more than two percent.

The institute, in New York, says this is the first drop in thenumber of foreign students in more than thirty years. More than fivehundred seventy-two thousand attended American colleges anduniversities between September of last year and May of this year.

Officials counted five percent fewer undergraduates from othercountries than the year before. However, the number of foreigngraduate students increased. It was up by two and one-half percent.

For a third year, India sent the most students to the UnitedStates, just under eighty thousand. That was a seven percentincrease from the year before. China sent the next highest number,sixty-one thousand. But that was down five percent from the yearbefore.

South Korea was third, with fifty-two thousand students, up twopercent. And Japan was fourth, with forty-thousand students. Thatwas down eleven percent from the year before.

The school with the largest number of foreign students was, for athird year, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.Columbia University in New York City was second.

The report is called "Open Doors Two Thousand Four." It discussesreasons for the decrease in foreign students in the United States.These include difficulties getting a visa, higher costs andcompetition from schools in other English-speaking nations. Also,some people think foreign students are no longer welcome in theUnited States.

Education Department officials say they are working with otheragencies to show that international students are welcome. And thenumber of students is expected to increase next year. The number ofstudent visas approved in the first six months of this year was upeleven percent from the same period last year.

You can read more of the report on the Web site of the Instituteof International Education: www.iie.org. And you can find ourForeign Student Series at voaspecialenglish dot com. Next week, inpart fourteen, learn about ways to study in the United Statesthrough the Fulbright programs.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by NancySteinbach. I'm Gwen Outen.