Ni Hao, Future Educators - Mitch Smith, Inside Higher Ed

Elite education programs -- including Columbia, the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley -- are among those noting significant increases. Chinese applicants are leading those increases at Columbia and Southern California. Berkeley didn't have country-by-country data readily available. Elsewhere, the trend has been less pronounced. Nathan Bell, director for research and policy analysis at the Council of Graduate Schools, said applications are down at some colleges. Bell cautions against looking too deeply into the data since only 5 percent of international graduate students pursue a degree in education. Still, he said, there are signs this year's surge from China is more than an anomaly. “What can happen when there’s a relatively small number is you can have rather large increases,” Bell said. “[But the data] does suggest that perhaps the number of international students pursuing graduate degrees in education is on the rise.”