Bulgarian students in the US - some statistics

The number of Bulgarian college students in the US has grown
tremendously since the early nineties. There were only 889 Bulgarian
students in the 1992-93 academic year, according to a study by the
Institute of International Education. In 1999-2000, there were 2,867
such students, an increase of 222%. 

Bulgaria just surpassed Greece in the total number of students and
moved to the 34th place (see Figure 1). The top 10 countries are China
(54,466), Japan (46,872), India (42,337), the Republic of Korea,
Taiwan, Canada, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, and Turkey. Among Eastern
European countries, Bulgaria is second after Russia (7,072 students)
and ahead of Romania (2,735), Poland (2,209) and Ukraine
(1,685). Bulgaria ranks high even when compared against all European
countries (8th place after Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia,
France, Sweden, Spain, and Italy, and ahead of Greece, Romania, and
Norway).


                  Year    Rank Number  Increase
                 1992-93          889
                 1993-94         1195   +34.4%
                 1994-95         1396   +16.8%
                 1995-96   #50   1588   +13.8%
                 1996-97   #47   1805   +13.7%
                 1997-98   #37   2265   +25.5%
                 1998-99   #35   2573   +13.6%
                 1999-00   #34   2867   +11.4%

     Figure 1. Increase in the numbers of Bulgarian students in the
     USA (1992-93), data from the Institute of International Education


In 1997-98, the last year for which such information is available, the
largest percentage of Bulgarian students (see Figure 2) in the US were
in Business (26.7%), followed by the Social Sciences (14.3%), the
Physical and Life Sciences (10.2%), Mathematics and Computer Science
(8.1%).

                  Agriculture                 1.6%
                  Business                   26.7%
                  Education                   0.8%
                  Engineering                 4.6%
                  Fine and Applied Arts       7.8%
                  Health Sciences             1.4%
                  Humanities                  3.4%
                  Math and Computer Sciences  8.1%
                  Physical and Life Sciences 10.2%
                  Social Sciences            14.3%
                  Other                      10.9%
                  Intensive English (IELP)    1.7%

     Figure 2. Breakdown by field of study, 1997-98, data from the
     Institute of International Education

The IIE survey also indicates that the number of US students
undertaking studies in Bulgaria went up from 19 in 1997-98 to 50 in
1998-99, an increase of 163.2%.

For more information, see
http://www.opendoorsweb.org/Lead%20Stories/international_studs.htm