The U.S. is home to the largest number of college-educated immigrants in the world—perhaps unsurprising given its size. However, the country falls behind other advanced economies when it comes to the ratio of immigrants with a college degree within the total immigrant population, a new study from the Pew Research Center has found.
According to the study, there are around 14.7 million immigrants aged 25 and older with a postsecondary diploma or degree in the U.S., compared with 4.4 million in Canada and 3.4 million in Britain. That means there are more than three times the number of college-educated immigrants in the U.S. than Canada and about four times the number as in the UK.
Despite that, however, an analysis of the percentage of immigrant populations age 25 and over with post-secondary diplomas or degrees within the immigrant populations across 12 countries found the U.S. be lagging far behind Canada, Britain, Australia, Israel and Sweden.
Among the countries surveyed, only two—Canada and Australia—have seen highly educated immigrants make up the majority of the immigrant population, at 65 percent and 63 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, Britain and Israel just fell short of that mark at 49 percent each, while Sweden lagged at 41 percent and the U.S. at 36 percent.
Still, the study noted that "moving beyond surveyed countries, the share of the U.S. immigrant population with a college degree still ranks among the middle of 20 economically advanced countries that have 500,000 or more immigrants and populations that are about 10 percent or more foreign-born."
While the study found that the U.S. trails behind other economically advanced nations in terms of its share of "high-skilled" immigrants, it also found that the majority of the U.S. public supports "high-skilled immigration," even among Americans who said they would like to see "fewer immigrants" in the U.S.
"Like publics in other economically advanced countries with a high number and share of immigrants, a majority of Americans support encouraging the immigration of high-skilled people into the United States," the report states.
According the study's findings, roughly eight in 10 (78 percent) U.S. adults support encouraging highly skilled people to immigrate and work in the U.S., while 63 percent of those who said they "want fewer immigrants" in the country said they supported high-skilled immigration.
Across all 12 countries surveyed, the study found that younger adults, more highly educated adults and adults with higher incomes "tend to be more supportive of encouraging highly skilled people to immigrate to their countries," however those findings, the Pew Research Center report pointed out, are generally in line with other surveys on attitudes toward immigrants and immigration.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Chantal Da Silva is Chief Correspondent at Newsweek, with a focus on immigration and human rights. She is a Canadian-British journalist whose work ... Read more
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