U. of Ill. a "target"?

As I read this morning's Northwest Herald, I wasn't sure what to think of the title of a short article, "U. of Ill. a top target for foreign students".

I thought immediately of 9/11 and the flight schools selected by the terrorists for their flight training. "Target" and "foreign" jumped out at me.

What the title meant was that the U. of Ill. was a top choice of foreign students, attracting "more foreign students last year than any other public university and more than all but three private schools."

Does "target" seem like the right word to you in this context?