"While the large increases in applications from India and Brazil are encouraging, the decrease in Chinese applicants needs attention," she said.
Both Nassau and Suffolk reported increases in applications for food stamps.
Indeed, state universities are seeing huge increases in applications.
Law schools, meanwhile, are enjoying their first increases in applications since the 1980's.
Many colleges have had bigger increases in applications from far away.
They are facing record increases in applications, fuelled by older students wanting to escape the recession by doing a degree.
There were annual increases in applications in each of those years, peaking at just under 250,000 last year, according to the report.
By contrast, record increases in applications in recent years demonstrate a widening desire for higher learning and all that it promises in personal and professional terms.
Surrey said it had seen large increases in applications for physics and engineering courses, as well as chemistry, economics and English.
Some law schools experienced big increases in applications over the last year, for example, but roughly half of the elite schools, including Duke, Harvard and Yale, registered declines.
A decline in applications for unemployment benefits, stock market gains on Wall Street and increases in applications for building permits drove the index higher in December.
