The scale of movement of international students has increased dramatically in the post-war period, with the United States acting as a major destination owing partly to a good education system and generous funding of graduate studies. Officially, these migrations are expected to be temporary and visa restrictions are applied accordingly; in reality many international students never return to their home countries. Despite the large number of international students in the United States, little research has been done about this group of professional migrants. Using focus group interviews, we investigate the factors that motivate students to stay in the United States or return home on completion of their degrees. We identify three categories of motivating factors: professional, societal, and personal. Among our study participants, professional factors were generally cited as encouraging the students to stay in the United States, while societal and personal factors were more likely to draw them back to their home countries, although wide variations existed among individuals. Our results suggest that certain patterns exist among national groups. These operated in two main ways. First, specific characteristics of the home country (such as difficult political circumstances) provided state-specific influences on the decision-making process. Second, the relative weight assigned to each of the three groups of factors appeared to differ among national groups.
