Shao Cui/SPPS

Conducted by the International Graduate Insight Group, called i-graduate, the StudentPulse survey is based on over 11,000 students from 143 countries. Ninety-five percent of participants rated the United Kingdom as an attractive or very attractive place to study, while only 93 percent said the same about America.

"It is a concern because we do depend on the diversity and educational excellence that international students bring," said Kim Beisecker, director of Virginia Tech's Cranwell International Center.

She added that a trend of international students gravitating toward European countries and Australia has been evident for a few years.

"The U.S. no longer has the dominance on the international education market," Beisecker said.

Britain's universities were considered very attractive based on their scores on many of the factors that international students value most, such as high quality teaching and research, reputation of qualifications, and safety and personal security. Eighty-two percent of students said they felt the U.S. was safe and secure, only a slightly higher rating than China and South Korea.  

Another aspect that severely hurt America's rankings was lack of convenience and cheap prices. The U.S. is considered by far to be the hardest country from which to receive a student visa, while participants thought China, India and Thailand were most likely to grant them visas. These three countries were also voted cheapest, while the U.S. and UK were considered the most expensive places to study.

"Given the stringencies placed upon (international students) to get visas and their paperwork to enter the U.S., that does not surprise me," said Amy Widner, public relations coordinator in Tech's Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

"I would assume that, with smaller countries with less well-known or less prestigious universities, they would be attractors because of cost," said Monika Gibson, director of Student Services in Tech's graduate school.

She added that Tech currently has 464 international undergraduates, a number that has dropped since Sept. 11, 2001.

Gibson said that the roughly 1,400 international graduate students on Tech's Blacksburg campus have not seen a decrease, although she stated that other countries have been trying harder than the U.S. to recruit students.

"I wouldn't say that there's a lack of foreign students," Gibson said. "If you look at the number of doctoral degrees in engineering and sciences, I think approximately a little less of half of those degrees in the U.S. are already granted to non-U.S. nationals."

Despite the relatively high number of foreign students on Tech's campus, the StudentPulse survey draws attention to the possibility that America's position as the most attractive study abroad location could be in jeopardy.

"I think the U.S. needs to take a hard look at its graduate education and consider how to attract more domestic students as well as international students, and how to remain competitive in an international arena, where other countries are coming up to the level where the U.S. has been," Gibson said.