A new report that examines the experiences of both international students in Germany and German students abroad shows that, although the number of foreign students in Germany has risen every year for the past decade, making the country “among the leading academic destinations in the world, behind the United States and Great Britain,” some key figures have begun to stagnate.

The report, “Internationalization of Higher Education — Foreign Students in Germany — German Students Abroad,” was prepared for Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research by Hochschul-Informations-System, a German higher-education consulting firm, based on the Social Survey of the National Association of German Student Services Organizations, a student poll that has been conducted every three years since 1951.

The overall number of internationally mobile Chinese students, “the vast majority of students who study abroad,” more than doubled from 2002 to 2005, from approximately 182,000 to more than 400,000. Germany’s share of that fast-growing group increased in raw numbers from about 17,000 in 2002 to around 27,000 in 2005, but declined in percentage terms from 7.7 percent in 2002 to 6.7 percent in 2005 because more of the Chinese students went elsewhere.

The report will raise concerns because increasing foreign-student enrollment is a central aim of German universities. A national program, spearheaded by the federal government, is intended to make the country’s universities more internationally competitive and attractive to foreign students.

“Only 43 percent of the foreign students surveyed indicated that Germany was their first choice on the list of countries where they would have preferred to study,” the report says. “German students aren’t hostile to foreigners — but they don’t feel the need to approach foreigners and offer help,” one of the researchers who conducted the study told Agence France-Presse. —Aisha Labi