The number of Nepali students going for higher studies in US colleges and universities jumped by 18.4 percent in 2015-2016, after six years of decline, according to a new report released on Monday.

According to the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange (IEE), a total of 9,662 Nepali students enrolled for the academic year 2015-2016 for higher studies in US colleges and universities. The increase comes after six years of decline—almost 30 percent decrease since 2009—in the number of students going to the US for higher education, the report says.

The number of Nepali students going for US colleges and universities was 8,158 in 2014-2015.

Nepalis are one of the fastest growing student communities in the United States representing five percent of the total international student population of nearly around 1,044,000 enrolled in the past year.

Nepal has been put among China, India, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Iran, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Kuwait, France, Indonesia, Venezuela, Malaysia, Colombia and Spain—16 of the top 25 places of origin—from where the numbers of students at US colleges were increasing.

The IEE report ranks China as the top country of origin for international students in the US for 2015-2016 followed by India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Canada while Nepal is ranked 17.

The number of Chinese students at US colleges rose from 62,000 a decade ago to 328,000 last year, and they still make up 31 percent of all international students in the US, according to an Associated Press report on Monday. “But the growth is slowing,” the report said. The federal data released by the IEE on Monday shows the number of Chinese students at US colleges grew by 8 percent last year, the smallest uptick since 2005.

According to the Open Doors Report, while students from China and India remained the leading countries of origin and accounted for 84 percent of the growth in international students in 2015-16, Saudi Arabia’s government-sponsored international scholarship programme helped drive that country to surpass South Korea to become the third largest sender of international students to the United States. China remains the top sending country, with almost twice the number of students in the US as India, but India’s rate of growth and absolute increases outpaced China’s, says the report. “For the second year in a row, the largest growth was in the number of students from India, primarily at the graduate level and in optional practical training.”

The new Open Doors Report was released to mark the celebration of International Education Week, a joint initiative of the US Department of State and the US Department of Education designed to attract future leaders from other countries to study, learn, and exchange experiences in the United States, said a statement issued by the Embassy of the United States in Kathmandu.

As part of International Education Week, the embassy hosted an Education Fair at Yak and Yeti Hotel on Monday.