Recent trends in the number and composition of overseas students in Britain are summarized, and the accompanying statistics are presented. Among the trends are the following: (1) since 1967 the public sector has become dominant in the totals for overseas students, and within that sector nonuniversity institutions have become more important than the university in numerical terms (polytechnics have been a particularly fast-growing group); (2) the proportions of overseas students, after falling during the 1960's at least in universities, recovered in the 1970s and are now higher than in the 1960s; (3) the proportion of overseas students in the student body is particularly large at the postgraduate level in the universities, and in some fields exceeds the British students; (4) recently the undergraduate courses have shown overseas students' greatest growth; (5) overseas students are particularly concentrated in engineering and technology, and to a lesser extent in science and other applied subjects; (6) there has been some shift in the overseas countries of origin away from the poorest and richest countries and towards the middle-income countries; and (7) Europe is badly underrepresented among overseas students in Britain. (SW)