While the number of overseas students from China and India has grown steadily over the past two decades, the number of Japanese students studying abroad had been dropping since the late nineties, New York Times reporter Miki Tanikawa writes. The reporter cites IIE statistics showing that "the number of Japanese students studying on U.S. campuses hit a peak of 47,000 in 1997, and then fell to 19,000 in 2011."

But now that trend is reversing. According to the article, the number of new visas issued by the U.S. State Department to Japanese students rose 10 percent to 18,668 in 2012, from 16,811 in 2011, partially because Japanese employers are cultivating a more globalized working environment, and partially because more Japanese students at the college and high school levels are going overseas to study English. Read more at the New York Times.