Foreign students are flocking to — and spending cash — at Greater Boston colleges and universities at one of the highest rates in the country, helping pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy in the process, according to a new report.
Greater Boston schools boast the third-most foreign students in the nation, and the $1.77 billion they spent here on tuition between 2008 and 2012 trails only New York nationally, according to the report released yesterday by the Washington think tank, the Brookings Institution, and JP Morgan Chase Co.
International students, in turn, also spent more than $932 million on living costs during the same time frame, thanks in part to the area’s 85 schools, which are home to more than 53,000 who came from abroad, the study said.
Boston has long been recognized as an international student hub, but the numbers have been driven of late by an influx of students from China and India, where an increasing middle class has helped make the dream of attending a U.S. college more realistic, according to one local college official.
More than 12,600 students from China enrolled in Greater Boston schools, and nearly 5,500 more came from India, the two highest populations from any country, according to the report.
“We have the types of programs they want to apply to,” said Colin Riley, a spokesman for Boston University, which accepted 8,413 foreign students in the four-year span, the 11th most in the country.
Only Northeastern University, with 9,279, had more in Boston. Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Suffolk University were the area’s other top destinations.
Riley said that BU boasts students from more than 140 countries, and international students make up roughly 20 percent of the school’s population, though he emphasized it’s about more than just the boost they give to a school financially.
“Anywhere where there are schools, they have a tremendous economic impact,” he said. “We have a long history of having international students.”
The report said that roughly 52 percent of the foreign student graduates ended up staying to work in the area.
“Metropolitan economies can potentially benefit if the federal government reforms the immigration system to increase retention of America’s foreign students,” the report states.