University of Cincinnati (UC) is aspiring to have more Indian students at their US campus in the coming few years. The university which already has about 600 students on campus is looking to increase this number in a gradual manner. Presently, the maximum chunk of international students at UC come from China, followed by India.

Jonathan Weller, Director of International Admission at UC said, "India has been one of our largest  international  student  populations  for the past 15  years, with most Indian students pursuing post-graduate programs. We remain committed to India and are announcing several new post-graduate programs  in Engineering, Finance and Law for Indian students with substantial scholarships to make their studies at  UC as affordable as possible."

Weller informed that Indians had been given $5 million (Rs 26.4 crores) worth scholarships in 2010 and an estimated $7 million (Rs 36.9 crore) worth scholarships are expected to be given to Indian students in 2012. While the departments of science, engineering and biomedical sciences at UC offer high amount of scholarships, others like humanities, education and social sciences do not offer very high scholarship. 

UC has begun a one year masters degree programme called Masters  of  Engineering  (MEng). This  is  a  great  option  for  students  or  working    professionals. The  MEng  programme, which does not require students to pursue a thesis for the course, provides  roughly  40%  scholarship  assistance  to  students  upon  admission.  

The university also has recently introduced an MS  Finance  Program, which is a nine month  course. This course offers partial scholarships. Another new programme is the Masters  in  Law  (LLM)  Program, which does not require GRE test as an admission criteria and offers partial scholarships. This course would deal with American Law and would be ideal for individuals wanting to work in the US. 

Weller explained that though some courses and degrees were available for individuals online from the university's website, he added that there would be more programmes available online in a few years.

The university also has other ties with India, part from having Indian students at its campus. The university has undertaken 18 faculty projects in India wherein UC faculty visited India to undertake research. Further, they have 83 faculty members from India and UC students have also visited India to work on different projects. Recently, UC students visited Andhra Pradesh to work with an organisation working for the welfare of sex workers and helped them in their endeavours and helped them develop better business models for them.   

Of  India’s  1,04,000  students  studying  in  the  US,  more  than  60%  pursue  graduate  studies  at  Master’s  or  Doctoral  levels.  In  2011, India  became  the  country  sending  the  most  graduate  students  to  the  US  with  American  graduate  schools  admitting  8%  more  Indian  students.