Historically, approximately 50 percent of foreign students who earned S&E degrees at universities in the United States reported that they planned to stay in the United States, and a smaller proportion said they had firm offers to do so (NSF/SRS 1998). However, these percentages increased significantly in the 1990s. In the 1990–93 period, for example, of the foreign S&E doctoral degree recipients who reported their plans, 63 percent planned to remain in the United States after receiving their degree, and 41 percent had firm offers. By the 1998–2001 period, 76 percent of foreign doctoral degree recipients in S&E fields with known plans intended to stay in the United States, and 54 percent accepted firm offers to do so (appendix table 2-31 ). Although the number of S&E doctoral degrees earned by foreign students declined after 1996, the number of students who had firm plans to remain in the United States declined only slightly from its 1996 peak. Each year from 1996 to 2000, around 4,500 foreign doctoral degree recipients had firm offers to remain in the United States at the time of degree conferral, with a slight increase in 2001 (figure 2-30 ).