Students continue to flock to the United States for higher studies, and countries such as Australia and New Zealand are also working towards improving their status as destinations for international education. The United Kingdom, however, has seen its share of international students dwindle in recent years. Fears of high tuition fees, racism and bleak immigration opportunities have hurt the UK's attractiveness.

That's why the University of Leeds, amongst others, is aggressively working to inform international students of the educational possibilities open to them in the United Kingdom.

The University of Leeds is particularly active in India, and established a full-fledged South Asia Office in New Delhi in the year 1999. The office offers free counselling and guidance to aspiring students from all over India regarding the University's admission procedures, entry requirements, course details, scholarships and visas.

The South Asia Office also has a dedicated website to provide comprehensive information to aspiring students -- you can visit it at www.leedsindia.com.

The University of Leeds Indian Alumni Association has 1900 ex-students working in top management positions in MNCs, private firms and public sector organisations around the globe.

Within India, the university's alumni represent big names such as Tata's, Reliance Infocom, Reliance Industries, HSBC, Bharati Telecom, Orange, PriceWater Coopers, RPG Enterprises, NDTV, Tata Consultancy Services, Pepsi, ABN Amro Bank, Hyundai, TVS Motors, Godfrey Phillips, and so on.

Demonstrating its dedication towards attracting talent from around the globe, Leeds at present has 5,200 international students enroled from 140 countries, with accommodation guaranteed to all.

The university offers a staggering 700 courses at undergraduate level (UG) and 474 courses at postgraduate level (PG) in the areas of Arts, Social Science, Engineering, Science and Business.

At the postgraduate level, Management, International Marketing Management, International Business, Finance, LLM, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computers, Biosciences, and Communications are popular degree specialisations. There are also limited scholarships available for deserving students.

The University of Leeds has tie-ups with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) for research activities in Health and Business Management; with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai for Geographical Information Science (GIS), and with Kolkata's Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI) for collaborative science and engineering research.

The University also holds an Immersion Programme each year, for IIM students. The Immersion Programme sees a few students from an IIM institute visit the Leeds University Business School for a five week internship so as to gain a better understanding of European Business. The first time around, five students of PGPX (a full-time year long MBA post-graduate programme in Management for Executives) from IIM-A took part in the programme. This year, 14 students from IIM Kolkata will be attending the Immersion Programme at the Business School.

Leeds University Business School is one of the most influential business schools in the UK, and has received global recognition for the quality of its learning, teaching and research. It was rated amongst the world's top 100 business schools this year by the Financial Times (UK), and in 2006 by The Economist (UK). It has EQUIS accreditation from the European Foundation for Management Development (this is a distinction earned by 86 business schools worldwide, including only 16 in the UK), and MBA accreditation from the Association of MBAs (AMBA).

So, while the US may be ahead of the United Kingdom in terms of the number of international students flocking there, Leeds is just one university seeking to close the gap.

A representative from the University of Leeds South will host a rediff.com Expert Chat today from 3 pm to 4 pm.