EDUCATION REPORT - Foreign Student Series #30: Purdue University

I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Education Report.

We continue our series of reports for students who want to come to the United States to attend a college or university. Recently we have talked about some individual schools. This week our subject is Purdue University, in the Midwest. It is known for its engineering and business programs, among others.

Purdue University is in West Lafayette, Indiana. It was established in eighteen sixty-nine to teach about agriculture and the mechanical arts. A local business leader named John Purdue gave one hundred fifty thousand dollars to get started. At first there were six teachers and thirty-nine students.

Today, Purdue University offers more than five hundred areas of study. It has many different colleges. In addition to agriculture and engineering, these include business, education, technology and veterinary medicine.

Purdue University has more than thirty-eight thousand students at its main campus. This year nearly five thousand of these students are from outside the United States. They are from one hundred twenty-seven countries in all. The largest number of foreign students, almost one thousand, are from India.

Next is China, with more than seven hundred students. Other nations with more than one hundred students at Purdue this year are South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Turkey, Malaysia and Canada.

Almost three thousand foreign students at Purdue this year are in graduate programs. Most are studying engineering, science and business.

Graduate students pay about the same as undergraduates to attend Purdue. The cost is about twenty-nine thousand dollars for one year. That includes classes, housing, food, books and transportation. This year, the university began offering financial aid to more students, including students from other countries.

The Web site of the international student office at Purdue has information about financial aid and other programs. The address is iss.purdue.edu. Purdue is spelled P-U-R-D-U-E.

This was week number thirty in our Foreign Student Series. Our reports are online at www.unsv.com. To send us e-mail, write to special@voanews.com.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Gwen Outen.