NYU boasts second-highest international student population

Foreign students composed around 16 percent of the NYU student population last year, according to a new survey.

NYU has once again been ranked second in hosting the most international students by the 2009 Open Doors survey, released Monday by the Institute for International Education (IIE).

For the second year in a row, NYU followed the University of Southern California, which topped the list with its enrollment of 7,482 international students. Columbia University closely followed NYU with 6,685 foreign students. Of the 42,189 students enrolled at NYU last year, 6,761 were foreign students.

The survey also ranked New York City as the top host city to international students.

NYU spokesman John Beckman said he thinks NYU attracts a high number of foreign students because of its academic programs as well as its location in New York City.

"Wherever you come from, it is easy to feel at home in New York, and with NYU's global outlook, it is particularly easy to feel at home here," Beckman said.

Peggy Blumenthal, the executive vice president and chief operating officer at IIE, said many foreign students are drawn to American universities because their home countries offer a limited number of "excellent institutions."

"There are many, many students abroad who want a good education and can afford to pay for it, and so they're going to be looking abroad," Blumenthal said.

Along with NYU's overall international student population, the number of foreign students in this year's freshman class has increased. International students made up about 9 percent of last year's freshman class. But they make up about 11 percent of the class of 2013, according to Randall Deike, NYU's vice president for enrollment management. At a recent University Senate meeting, Deike said most of NYU's foreign students come from Korea, China and Singapore.

Tisch freshman Anthony Svatek is an international student from Austria.

"If it wasn't for the city, not many international students would come, I think," Svatek said. "The city is represented in the university."

Additional reporting by Ying Lam and Esther Tran-Le. Michaela Kron is university editor.