From meager 50,000 Indian students  going to study abroad in 1999, the numbers have risen to almost 1 mn in 2024. The growth is pegged to be somewhere around 1.5-2 mn students studying abroad in 2025. While it’s inevitable to become a global citizen in the 21st century, what has caused the advent? Why do Indian students study abroad? What are the reasons? Will it be sustainable? Is that brain drain? A simple yet informative analysis follows.

Here are some of the reasons why Indian students study abroad?

Information Era: With growth of internet availability and penetration in the Indian subcontinent, more and more Indians and their families are now aware of international opportunities

Internationalization: With India becoming hub to international organizations, more Indians are now getting global opportunities to travel and explore options beyond the limits

Affordability: While the per capita for the country is still around USD 2700, there is still a massive middle and upper middle class that wants to get that foreign degree, regardless of their reasons and motives

Rankings: While Indian universities are getting global recognition, some of them find place in global rankings like QS, THE, FT as well, the numbers are still meager when compared with international universities

Life standard: Though it’s debatable, students would want to have a better and seldom higher standard of living as compared to cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore when compared against cities like London, Paris, Stockholm.

Options & Competition: While studying abroad in India for most means studying in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, a lot of students and their parents are now exploring options in Europe as well. The European Higher Education system is not just one of the oldest, prestigious but also extremely affordable. I am sure you would have heard of the pro bono education system of countries like Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway where tuition is almost NIL. One excellent example is TU Munich of Germany where Engineering costs almost nothing and you get a degree from a university that ranks almost 100 places above India’s premier Engineering institutions. That said, a huge factor that can’t be ignored is the cut-throat competition, more than a million Indian students sit for the prestigious IIT JEE, 200K for IIMs, competing for mere thousands of seats thus leaving very few opportunities for majority of brilliant talent

Job Opportunities: No doubt, getting a job abroad is extremely challenging especially when you have a lottery system in the US for H1B, saturated markets in Canada, UK, and linguistic barriers in continental Europe, still students want to take that bet because commanding a language can be tough but not impossible. I personally believe, a foreign language is a life-long skill as against a 98% in CAT or 720 in GMAT

Settlement opportunities: Most countries offer a 5-7 years pathway to residency which also plays a huge role in attractiveness as tomorrow’s Indians are travelers, and when it comes to global travel, a foreign passport makes life very easy, especially for those considering a career in Consulting, International business development etc.

Social Security: Many countries offer almost free or extremely affordable social security to international students, employees, as opposed to paying a huge premium in India for healthcare. For eg: France offers one of the finest social security system to international students and thus countries like China, India and others in South Asia, East Asia are seeing a surge in outgoing students to these countries

ROI: Most Indians would want to study at IIMs, IITs and several other elite Indian universities but mere tuition of some of these schools is unaffordable and sometimes beats the cost vs ROI analysis when compared against some of the European universities

Example: Top tier IIMs cost around 25-30 Lakhs INR in tuition and an additional cost of 4-8 lacs for cost of living, exchange programs, thus with an overall investment of 30-40 Lacs, students will have to think twice given the return on investment (at least immediate) is still sub par. A 25 lacs CTC post a 40 lacs MBA will take 5-7 years on average to pay off that education loan.

Article By: Prayag Raj Tripathi, Founder Edvisory.in (Brand of Letude Edvisory Services Pvt. Ltd.)