Higher Education in India Mobility GapGlobalisation and Internationalisation of Higher Education in India [PDF]

Globalisation and Internationalisation of  Higher Education in India

Ambition, Evidence, and the Domestic Capacity Paradox

Introduction

India’s higher education system is the world’s second-largest by institutional count — around 58,000 institutions, 4.33 crore students, a Gross Enrolment Ratio that has risen from 6% in 1995 to 33% by 2023. The latest AISHE data for 2021-22 reveals a GER of 28.4 per cent, compared to 50% envisaged in the NEP 2020. It produces the world’s second-largest outflow of internationally mobile students, with 13.36 lakh studying abroad in 2024, and it aspires, under NEP 2020, to become a global hub for higher education. The evidence, however, reveals a structural paradox: India is simultaneously one of the largest exporters and one of the smallest importers of higher education talent.

Globalisation and Internationalisation of Indian Higher Education: Ambition, Evidence, and the Domestic Capacity Paradox is a data-driven analysis by Prof. Arun C. Mehta that disaggregates both flows with granular evidence. On the outbound side: India’s student population abroad nearly doubled in five years, from 6.75 lakh in 2019 to 13.36 lakh in 2024, with Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia together accounting for nearly 80% of all Indian students abroad. The students leaving are overwhelmingly in postgraduate STEM and management programmes — precisely the programmes that Indian institutions struggle to deliver at adequate quality and scale. On the inbound side: AISHE 2021-22 recorded 46,878 international students in India from 170 countries, with Nepal alone accounting for 28%. For every student India received, it sent approximately 285 abroad — a ratio that has since improved to approximately 185:1 following the Government’s December 2025 Rajya Sabha report of 72,218 inbound students, but which still defines the scale of the challenge.

The article examines the UGC 2023 regulatory framework that has permitted three foreign university campuses to become operational — Deakin University and the University of Wollongong at GIFT City, and the University of Southampton in Gurugram — and assesses whether this experiment can substitute for the deeper domestic reforms that drive international attractiveness. The central argument is that it cannot. India’s internationalisation strategy addresses the symptoms of quality deficits — faculty vacancies of 28.56% in central HEIs, R&D expenditure at 0.64% of GDP against a global average of approximately 2%, and graduate employability at 55% — without yet resolving their causes. Welcoming foreign campuses is a welcome signal; it is not a strategy.

The article is addressed to researchers, policymakers, higher education administrators, and analysts working on the implementation of NEP 2020, international student mobility, and India’s positioning in global knowledge networks.

About the Data

This article draws on eight distinct primary data sources, each measuring a different dimension of internationalisation. Understanding what each source measures — and what it does not — is essential to reading the findings correctly.

  • AISHE 2021-22: (All India Survey on Higher Education, PIB PRID 1999713, January 25, 2024) is the principal source for inbound foreign student data: total enrolment (46,878 from 170 countries), country of origin, discipline profile, and HEI-level characteristics. It also provides total higher education enrolment (4.33 crore), GER (28.4%), and faculty headcount (15.97–15.98 lakh). As the most recent nationally comprehensive survey, it is the baseline for all domestic higher education indicators in the article.
  • The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Rajya Sabha data provide cumulative stock figures — the total number of Indian students enrolled abroad at any point in the year. The 2024 figure is 13.36 lakh; this is the article’s primary measure of outbound mobility scale.
  • The Bureau of Immigration (BoI), Ministry of Home Affairs (Rajya Sabha, February 2026), provides annual departure figures — the number of new students leaving India for study in a given year. The 2024 figure is 7.70 lakh; this is a different and typically lower measure than the MEA stock figure. Both are correct for what they measure; the article presents both in Table 1 and uses MEA figures as the primary measure throughout.
  • The Government of India, Rajya Sabha (December 2025), reported 72,218 foreign students from 200 countries currently enrolled in India — a 54% increase from the AISHE 2021-22 baseline, reflecting the post-pandemic recovery and the Study in India programme. This figure is not yet captured in any AISHE survey.
  • RBI Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) data (via PIE News and BusinessToday, October 2025) tracks education-purpose remittances abroad: peak US$2.37 billion (April–August 2021), declining to US$1.0 billion (April–August 2025), the lowest since 2017. The NITI Aayog-cited estimate of ₹2.9 trillion spent by Indian students in the Big Four in 2023-24 is a composite estimate from multiple source-country datasets, not an RBI-audited balance-of-payments figure; the article identifies it as such.
  • QS World University Rankings 2025 and 2026 (PIB briefing, June 2024; Rajya Sabha, December 2025) provide India’s ranking profile: 46 institutions in 2025 (11 in the top 500; IIT Bombay at #118) and 54 institutions in 2026 (15 in the top 500).
  • The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Report No. 368 (August 8, 2025), provides faculty vacancy data: 28.56% of 18,940 sanctioned posts in central HEIs are vacant; professor-level vacancies at 56.18%.
  • DST R&D Statistics at a Glance 2022-23 and PIB PRID 2153547 provide India’s GERD figure of 0.64% of GDP (2020-21) and its sectoral composition.

Additional sources include IIE Open Doors 2023-24 (US discipline breakdown for Indian students), India Skills Report 2025 (Wheebox/ETS, graduate employability), World Bank World Development Indicators (GER comparisons, GDP per capita), and UGC Foreign HEI Approvals list with PIB PRID 1896169 (foreign campus regulatory framework). Full references with URLs are provided at the end of the article.

Major Findings

  1. India’s outbound student population nearly doubled in five years — from 6.75 lakh in 2019 to 13.36 lakh in 2024 — making it the world’s second-largest source of internationally mobile students. Canada hosts the largest share (4.27 lakh, 31.9%), followed by the United States (3.38 lakh), the United Kingdom (1.85 lakh), and Australia (1.22 lakh). Together, the Big Four account for nearly 80% of all Indian students abroad. In 2023-24, India surpassed China to become the single largest source of international students in the United States for the first time in over a decade. A decline to 12.54–12.59 lakh in 2025 reflects simultaneous visa tightening across all four major destinations, not any structural improvement in domestic supply.
  2. The students leaving are precisely those India most needs: postgraduate STEM and management talent. Of Indian students in the US in 2023-24, approximately 43% were in mathematics, computer science, and IT, and another 25% in engineering. Nearly 60% were at the master’s or doctoral level — proportionally higher than for any other major source country. This discipline and level concentration reflects a structural mismatch: the supply of high-quality postgraduate seats in STEM and management in India is acutely insufficient relative to demand.
  3. Education remittances have declined from their peak but remain substantial — and represent the direct fiscal cost of domestic quality deficits. RBI LRS remittances for study abroad peaked at US$2.37 billion (April–August 2021) and fell to US$1.0 billion (April–August 2025), the lowest since 2017. The NITI Aayog-cited composite estimate places total spending by Indian students in the Big Four at ₹2.9 trillion in 2023-24. This forex outflow is a measure of the opportunity cost of the domestic quality gap, not an argument against student choice.
  4. India’s inbound foreign student count stood at 46,878 in AISHE 2021-22 — stagnant for a decade — though the December 2025 Rajya Sabha report of 72,218 suggests meaningful post-pandemic recovery. The 2021-22 figure represented essentially no growth since 2015-16. The 54% increase to 72,218 by 2024-25 is encouraging. However, even at the improved level, the outbound-to-inbound ratio stands at approximately 185:1. India’s approximate global ranking as a host country remains well outside the top 20.
  5. India’s inbound student base is geographically narrow — dominated by South Asian neighbours and African countries, not global talent pools. Nepal alone accounts for 28% of all inbound students (approximately 13,126). Afghanistan (6.7%), Bangladesh (6%), UAE (5%), and Bhutan (3%) follow. Sub-Saharan African countries collectively account for an estimated 10–13% of private university enrollments, concentrated in medicine, management, and science. The top 10 source countries collectively account for about 65% of the total. This profile reflects India’s position as a cost-effective regional destination rather than a globally competitive research hub.
  6. India’s ranking trajectory is improving but remains elite-thin: 11 institutions in the QS top 500 out of 58,000+ HEIs, and none in the top 100. QS 2025 lists 46 Indian institutions (up from 11 in 2015), with IIT Bombay at #118 the highest-ranked. QS 2026 extends this to 54 institutions with 15 in the top 500. In subject-specific rankings, India performs better, with nine institutions in the global top 50 in their respective subjects. However, 11 top-500 institutions out of 58,000+ represents 0.019% of the system — a thin elite atop a vast system of uneven quality.
  7. India’s research output has grown impressively in volume — 3rd globally by Web of Science publications — but R&D investment at 0.64% of GDP is one-third of the global average. India’s GERD has remained essentially unchanged over the past two decades, while the global average is approximately 2%, China’s 2.6%, the US’s 3.45%, and South Korea’s 5.32%. The higher education sector accounts for only 8.8% of India’s GERD. Without research career opportunities, STEM graduates continue to drain to the US, Canada, and the UK — and without research density, India cannot attract the international graduate students who drive inbound mobility at quality destinations.
  8. Three foreign university campuses are now operational, but 17 campuses at their planned enrolments would represent less than 0.1% of the domestic system. Deakin University and the University of Wollongong operate at GIFT City; the University of Southampton opened in Gurugram in August 2025. Nine UK universities received UGC approvals during Prime Minister Starmer’s October 2025 trade mission. Fees of ₹16–25 lakh per year are lower than those for studying abroad, but unaffordable for most Indian families. No Ivy League or global top-50 research university has committed to an India campus. At 3,000 students each, 17 campuses would enrol approximately 51,000 students — barely exceeding India’s entire current inbound count.
  9. Faculty vacancies are the most immediate structural constraint on internationalisation. Central HEIs have 28.56% of sanctioned posts vacant, and professor-level vacancies stand at 56.18% (Parliamentary Report No. 368, August 2025). State university vacancy rates of 50–62% have been documented in Karnataka. An institution operating at 40–60% of intended faculty strength cannot offer the research supervision, citation output, or teaching quality on which rankings, inbound recruitment, and joint degree partnerships all depend.
  10. Internationalisation cannot be decoupled from domestic reform — and the policy sequencing matters. Graduate employability stands at 55% (India Skills Report 2025), the highest in the 12-year history of the survey, but still means nearly half of graduates lack the competencies industry requires. Graduate unemployment is estimated at 13.4% (Ministry of Labour) to 30% (ILO), depending on methodology. SC, ST, and OBC GERs of 25.9%, 21.2%, and 33.8% respectively, remain below the national average of 28.4%. The article argues that the causal logic runs from domestic quality to international attractiveness — not the reverse — and that filling faculty vacancies, doubling research investment, and raising graduate employability must precede, not follow, the internationalisation push.

Suggested Readings

The following companion articles on educationforallinindia.com provide the broader context within which this internationalisation analysis should be read. All are directly cross-referenced in the article.

  1. India’s Education Pipeline: From Grade 1 to College — Revised and Corrected Edition (March 2026): The foundational pipeline article tracing total enrolment from Grade 1 through to higher education, with survival rates, GERs, and dropout patterns at every stage. The 4.33 crore higher education enrolment figure and the 28.4% GER that anchor the internationalisation analysis are drawn from the same verified dataset used in this article.
  2. Will India Achieve 50% GER in Higher Education by 2035? — GER Projections to 2035 (March 2026): Presents four projection scenarios for India’s higher education GER through to 2035 under different policy assumptions. The gap between India’s current 28.4% GER and the NEP 2020 target of 50% by 2035 is the domestic capacity context within which the ambition to attract 2 lakh foreign students must be assessed. A system struggling to serve its own citizens cannot simultaneously position itself as a global destination.
  3. The STEM Pipeline in India: From Science Classrooms to STEM Degrees — Evidence from UDISE+ 2024-25 and AISHE 2021-22 (March 2026): Documents the STEM funnel from 3.72 crore secondary students to approximately 25–30 lakh annual STEM graduates, with a 47.2% higher secondary retention rate as the critical bottleneck. The postgraduate STEM deficit that drives India’s outbound surge — 43% of Indian students in the US study mathematics, computer science, and IT — is the higher education expression of the school-level STEM pipeline weaknesses documented in this article.
  4. Teachers for Universal Education by 2030: Supply, Quality, and the Training Gap — Evidence from UDISE+ 2024-25 and AISHE 2021-22 (March 2026): Documents the teacher and faculty vacancy crisis in depth: 9.83 lakh school-level vacancies, 28.56% vacancies in central HEIs, and professor-level vacancies at 56.18%. The faculty vacancy data cited in Section 7 of the internationalisation article as the most immediate structural constraint on India’s global ambitions is analysed in full in this companion piece. The two articles together make the case that human capital supply — of teachers and researchers — is the binding constraint on India’s education system at every level. TEACHERS in India FOR UNIVERSAL EDUCATION BY 2030 [PDF]

References

  1. Ministry of Education, AISHE 2021-22 (PIB PRID 1999713, January 25, 2024).
  2. Ministry of External Affairs, Indian Students Abroad 2024 (Rajya Sabha data; PIE News, August 8, 2024).
  3. Ministry of External Affairs, Indian Students Abroad 2025 (ICEF Monitor, December 2025).
  4. Reserve Bank of India, Study Abroad Remittances data (PIE News and BusinessToday, October 2025).
  5. RBI, 6th Round India Remittances Survey 2023-24. https://www.newindiaabroad.com/english/news/india-remittances-from-us-uk-surpass-those-from-gulf-rbi
  6. NITI Aayog, Report on Internationalisation of Indian Higher Education (cited in New India Abroad).
  7. Loo, B. (WES/WENR), “India’s Moment: Student Mobility from and to a Key Player,” February 2025. https://wenr.wes.org/2025/02/indias-moment-an-examination-of-student-mobility-from-and-to-a-key-player
  8. Institute of International Education (IIE), Open Doors 2023-24. https://opendoorsdata.org/
  9. British Council, “India Releases Updated Higher Education Statistics” (AISHE 2021-22 analysis). https://opportunities-insight.britishcouncil.org/short-articles/news/india-releases-updated-higher-education-statistics
  10. UGC, Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India Regulations, 2023. https://news.careers360.com/ugc-foreign-universities-india-guidelines-rankings-admission-courses-fees-scholarship
  11. PIB, “India Shines in QS World University Rankings 2025” (June 2024). https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2024/jun/doc202467340601.pdf
  12. DST, R&D Statistics at a Glance 2022-23. https://dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/Updated%20RD%20Statistics%20at%20a%20Glance%202022-23.pdf
  13. PIB, Parliamentary question on R&D investment in India (PRID 2153547). https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2153547
  14. Springer Nature, Global Research Pulse: India (2024). https://stories.springernature.com/global-research-pulse-india/index.html
  15. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Report No. 368 (August 8, 2025), as reported by The Federal and Careers360.
  16. World Bank, World Development Indicators — GER, GDP per capita, R&D expenditure.
  17. Wheebox/ETS, India Skills Report 2025. https://wheebox.com/india-skills-report.htm
  18. GOALisB Research, “Foreign University Campuses in India: India as a Global Education Hub (2026–2030),” December 2025. https://www.goalisb.com/post/foreign-university-campuses-in-india
  19. The Red Pen, “International Universities Opening Campuses in India,” November 2025. https://theredpen.in/blog/international-universities-opening-campuses-in-india-what-you-need-to-know/
  20. College Access Program, “India Opens Its Doors: Foreign Universities in India,” August 2025. https://www.collegeaccessprogram.in/blog/india-opens-its-doors-foreign-universities-land-in-india/
  21. UGC, “Foreign Higher Educational Institutions (FHEIs) — List of Approvals,” and PIB, “UGC Regulations on Setting Up Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India,” 2023. https://www.ugc.gov.in/e-book/Foreign_University/ and https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1896169