Last Updated on November 20, 2025 5:38 pm by INDIAN AWAAZ
R. Suryamurthy
India’s student mobility equation is now so lopsided that it borders on structural distortion. A new NITI Aayog working paper warns that India is sending students abroad at a scale unmatched in its history, while attracting too few to replace the economic and academic value that leaves the country each year. For every foreign student enrolled in an Indian institution, 19 Indians now study abroad, the paper notes, calling the outward tilt “a significant imbalance” that demands a strategic correction. In 2021, the ratio spiked to 1:24, the worst on record, even as India’s outbound numbers roared back to 1.33 million in 2024, turning the country into the world’s largest source of international students.
Inbound numbers, by contrast, are stuck in neutral. India hosted 46,878 foreign students in 2021–22 — barely 0.10% of its higher-education enrolment and a decline from the 2019–20 peak of 49,348. The stagnation stands out sharply against the global boom in student mobility, which expanded from 2.2 million in 2001 to 6.9 million in 2022. “India participates only on one side of this wave,” the report notes, describing the country as a “semi-peripheral host” that neither attracts meaningful numbers nor competes effectively with global destinations.
Even at its strongest, India’s inbound share — 0.13% of enrolment — looks microscopic next to Canada’s 39% or Australia’s 31%. The NITI authors say the problem is not demand but delivery: India simply does not offer the international student the clarity, convenience, campus experience or post-study incentives that competing destinations have built into their systems. “Simplifying visa processes, reducing documentation burdens, and addressing regulatory bottlenecks” is described as a prerequisite for any turnaround, not an optional reform.
The inbound geography itself has shifted in ways that underscore the need for a national overhaul. Karnataka — once India’s natural gateway, with 13,182 foreign students in 2012–13 — has fallen to 5,954, a collapse of 55% as traditional hubs struggle with saturated metros and rising costs. Tamil Nadu has slipped too, while states such as Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have raced ahead on the back of private universities, aggressive state-led branding, and cheaper living environments. Punjab’s numbers have quadrupled, Gujarat’s have risen six-fold, and Uttar Pradesh now attracts more international students than Delhi or Tamil Nadu — a quiet but telling shift in India’s internal higher-education economy.
The inbound cohort itself is changing. Nepal remains India’s single largest source with 13,126 students, but African enrolments from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Tanzania are rising, while traditional contributors such as Iran, Iraq and Malaysia have faded. Engineering continues to be the top draw — B.Tech enrolments for foreign students jumped from 2,733 in 2012–13 to 11,461 in 2021–22 — but MBBS numbers have dropped sharply due to regulatory complexity and more attractive options abroad.
Outbound mobility tells the opposite story: Canada pulling 4.27 lakh Indians in 2024, the U.S. taking 3.38 lakh, the UK multiplying its intake fourfold, and Australia and Germany holding steady. The NITI paper calculates that Indian students spent USD 34 billion in just four countries in 2023–24; when extrapolated globally, the total overseas education bill is projected to hit USD 70 billion by 2025 — “a serious and structural foreign exchange leakage,” in the paper’s words. Outward remittances for overseas education have grown 2,000% in a decade, a burden now equivalent to 2% of India’s GDP.
What makes the imbalance alarming, the authors argue, is not just the money but the talent and reputation India loses. The country exports thousands of high-skilled students annually — many of whom do not return — while failing to attract comparable talent from abroad. India’s global academic footprint remains thin, undermining its aspiration to be an education hub in Asia.
The paper acknowledges that New Delhi has made ambitious policy moves — from NEP 2020’s call for “internationalisation at home” to UGC’s new twinning rules, GIFT City’s foreign campuses and the entry of eleven international universities by mid-2025. Yet it argues that outcomes remain underwhelming because structural issues remain untouched: slow visas, weak branding, uneven campus infrastructure, limited student services, and the absence of meaningful post-study options. It calls for a sweeping reimagining of India’s strategy, urging the government to build a powerful global academic brand, invest in student experience, embed internationalised learning at home, and offer competitive internship or work pathways that mirror global norms.
“India is at an inflection point,” the authors conclude. “The domestic system has the scale and policy support to become a global education destination — but without decisive implementation, the imbalance in student mobility will only widen.”