Here are the latest Viet Nam-related stats from the long-awaited May 2022 SEVIS update. (You can also access these data for Viet Nam and other countries using this interactive map.) The good news is that the decline since October 2021 is minimal, i.e., less than 1%, meaning we can probably expect the numbers to increase in the 2022/23 academic year as we ease into the new normal era.

There are currently 23,809 students from Viet Nam at all levels studying in the US, mostly in higher education. As you can see below, Viet Nam ranks 6th among places of origin:

China: 257,385

India: 203,842

South Korea: 45,574

Canada: 29,227

Brazil: 26,595

Vietnam: 23,809

Taiwan: 19,754

Saudi Arabia: 18,763

Nigeria: 17,208

Mexico: 15,661

Here are two trends worth mentioning:

1. The number of boarding and day school students rebounded slightly, increasing from 1,790 in October to 1,913. They now comprise 8% of total enrollment at all levels, up from 7.5% in October 2021.
2. Community college enrollment continued to decline from 6,045 in June 2021 to 4,313 in October 2021, a 29% decrease, to 3,932 in the latest update. There was a very modest .90% increase in the number of Vietnamese studying at four-year institutions from 12,268 (51.1%) to 12,378 (52%) from last October to this May. That’s the continuation of a shift from two-year to four-year institutions because of the lower average price point and the increasing number of choices that students and parents have now vs. five or 10 years ago.

The number of students enrolled in language programs remained basically the same at 529, or 2.2% of the total. There are two main reasons for this: 1) it’s difficult to get a student visa to study English in the US; and 2) more and higher quality opportunities to study English at home now than in the past.

Here are the top 10 host states for Vietnamese students. It’s worth noting that WA, which has long ranked 3rd among host states, is now 4th behind MA. The reason is the decrease in the number of Vietnamese studying at WA community colleges.

California: 3,916

Texas: 3,393

Massachusetts: 1,642

Washington: 1,434

New York: 1,285

Pennsylvania: 1,125

Florida: 1,013

Ohio: 929

Illinois: 895

Georgia: 575

Finally, the gender gap remains the same, more or less. 53.6% of all Vietnamese students in the US are female and 46.4% male.

Shalom (שלום), MAA