Adult immigrants who arrived in the United States between 2011 and 2015 had a higher level of education than previous expatriates, and 48 percent of them were university graduates, according to a report released today by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).
In comparison, only 27% of immigrants who arrived in the country a quarter of a century ago (1986-1990) had a university degree, according to the study center.
This has contributed to the tripling of the immigrant population with university education between 1990 and 2015, from 3.1 to 11.1 million people.
“Today, immigrants make up 17 percent of the 66.4 million adults in the United States with a college degree, compared to 10 percent in 1990,” the study notes.
Jeanne Batalova, co-author of the report, said that this increase reflects the “growing migration from Asia”, as half of the university immigrants who came to the country since 2010 came from this continent.
It also shows an improvement in education worldwide, an increase in higher education in English and that this language has become the “global lingua franca”, especially in business and science, among other areas.
Latin Americans are now the second largest group of highly skilled immigrants, overthrowing Europeans, who fell to third place.
However, European immigrants are more likely to have a university degree (65%) than those from Asia (62%), Oceania (61%), North America (53%), Africa (40%) and America Latin America (23%).
All of this has led to immigrants having more academic training than those born in the United States in a number of states.
For example, in Michigan and Ohio, while between 59 and 63 percent of immigrants in these two states had a college degree, only 26 percent or 27 percent of those born in these regions had higher education.
In total, the percentage of those born in the United States with a university degree was 31%, for 48% of those arriving in the country between 2011 and 2015.
