A new Government of India study, Internationalisation of Higher Education in India: Prospects, Potential, and Policy Recommendations, prepared by NITI Aayog, regrets that India’s lag in this sector is the direct result of “several systemic challenges such as inadequate infrastructure to provide quality education and deliver world-class research, weak industry–academia collaboration, and outdated curricula.”Calling these “structural gaps” that have “contributed to a growing cultural shift, wherein families increasingly aspire for their children to pursue education and careers overseas,” the study notes that outbound student mobility—contributing “significantly to brain drain”—saw 13.36 lakh students going abroad in 2024.
Terming this a major “economic loss,” the study cites Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data to show that outward remittances under the ‘studies abroad’ component of the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) surged by over 2,000%, from USD 0.16 billion in 2013–14 to nearly USD 3.4 billion in 2023–24.
Pointing out that RBI data capture only “formal remittances and not the total cost of overseas education, which includes tuition, accommodation, and living expenses—indicating that the true financial outflow is even higher,” the study adds that industry body ASSOCHAM estimated in 2020 that about 4.5 lakh Indian students had spent over USD 13 billion per annum on higher education abroad.
Quoting yet another source—the Indian Student Mobility Report—the study says Indian students “collectively spent an estimated USD 37 billion on overseas education in 2019,” which rose to approximately USD 47 billion in 2022. At the current annual growth rate of 14%, it projects that expenditure on foreign education by Indian students would reach approximately USD 70 billion by 2025—“about 10 times the Government of India’s higher education budget for 2025–26 and approximately 2% of India’s GDP.”
Stating that this “underscores the increasing forex burden on the Indian economy,” the study notes: “India’s overall trade deficit (including services and merchandise trade) stood at nearly USD 94 billion in FY 2024–25. Expenditure on foreign education by Indian students in 2025 is, therefore, nearly 75% of India’s overall trade deficit in FY 2024–25.”
Apart from the financial loss, the study says, “The outmigration of skilled students and researchers diminishes India’s potential to build a strong indigenous R&D ecosystem. This not only hampers innovation and knowledge creation within the country but also increases dependency on foreign technologies and limits India’s ability to address its unique socio-economic challenges through homegrown solutions.”
Even as it states that this approach could help India “retain its talent, attract foreign students, build knowledge capital, and reduce dependency on external systems—thus turning its higher education sector into a true engine for national transformation and global influence,” the study laments that, as of today, “outbound students outnumber inbound students by nearly 25 times, highlighting a serious imbalance.”
Thus, while between 2012 and 2022 inbound international student numbers grew by 34%, reaching a peak of 46,878 in 2021–22, this still represents a very small share of India’s total higher education enrolment. The study calls India “an outlier with a negligible percentage of international students,” noting a decline from 0.12% in 2014 to 0.10% in 2022.
Although the study does not provide the latest figures, official sources say that as of 2024–25 the total number of international students in India stood at 72,218, or about 0.17%. Ironically, this remains far removed from the milestone set by the Government of India. The Study in India (SII) programme, launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Education, had aimed to increase foreign student enrolment in India to 2,00,000 by 2023.
Offering comparisons with other countries, the study notes that in 2024 Canada had 39% international students, followed by Australia at 31%, the UK at 27%, the Netherlands at 16%, Finland and Hungary at 14%, Germany at 13%, France and New Zealand at 12% each, Denmark and Sweden at 11%, Norway at 10%, Spain and Poland at 9%, and South Korea at 7%. It cites a figure of 11,26,690 international students in the US, or about 6% of the total.
Identifying constraints to going global, the study lists the lack of a regulatory framework to encourage and facilitate endowment growth in higher education, failure to match global academic curricula and industry alignment, complicated visa procedures, the absence of a comprehensive branding, marketing, and outreach strategy, limited scholarships, poor infrastructure and technology and R&D resources, and “challenges with respect to cultural adaptation, language barriers, and job placement.”
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| Enrolment of International Students in India (2012-13 to 2021-22) |
What should be done to enhance India’s global ambitions in higher education? Among other measures, the study suggests offering “courses and programmes in subjects such as Indology, Indian languages, AYUSH systems of medicine, Yoga, arts, music, history, culture, and modern India,” alongside internationally relevant curricula in the sciences, social sciences, and beyond.
Elsewhere, the study admits: “Indian institutions lag behind global standards in research and innovation. As a result, professionals in academia and R&D often relocate to countries offering better infrastructure and opportunities.”
Thus, “since 2011, over 16 lakh individuals have renounced Indian citizenship, highlighting concerns over talent outflow.” In this context, it underlines that “one-third of the tech workforce spearheading innovation in Silicon Valley comprises Indians, with nearly 40% of the region’s CEOs or founders having roots in South Asia, particularly India.”
While agreeing that “this diaspora represents an unparalleled intellectual and entrepreneurial resource that can be mobilised to mentor, invest in, and directly contribute to building India’s knowledge economy,” the study cites the Union education minister’s September 2024 statement on the need for an “indigenous Silicon Valley.” However, the 266-page study offers no concrete roadmap for achieving this.
On the contrary, it appears to place faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi–promoted Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) as an opportunity for India to go global in higher education. The study cites examples of how GIFT City has been promoting what it terms International Branch Campuses (IBCs), owned and operated by foreign providers.
Calling this a “first significant step towards permitting foreign universities to set up IBCs in India,” backed by Union Budget support, the study notes that GIFT City has been permitted to offer courses in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) “free from domestic regulations, except those of the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA).”
According to the study, “universities opting to establish IBCs in GIFT City–IFSC can offer a range of undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral, and executive programmes under the permissible subject areas mentioned in the regulations.”
Without providing data on student enrolment or faculty strength in GIFT City’s IBCs, the study adds that as of December 2025, two Australian institutions—Deakin University and the University of Wollongong—had established a presence in GIFT City, while two UK institutions, Coventry University and Queen’s University Belfast, are “set to commence their academic operations from 2026, after obtaining registration from the IFSCA.”
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