India’s expanding student migration marks a structural shift in how mobility, education and aspiration intersect. No longer limited to elite scholarships or top-ranked universities, overseas education has become a mass middle-class strategy, financed largely through family savings and debt. While this appears to democratise access to global education, the outcomes increasingly reveal a mismatch between aspiration and reality.
How India Became a Global Student Exporter
India is now among the world’s largest senders of international students. Ministry of External Affairs data show that over 13.2 lakh Indian students were enrolled across more than 70 countries in 2023, rising to 13.35 lakh in 2024 and projected to reach 13.8 lakh by 2025. Around 40% are concentrated in the United States and Canada, followed by the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.
This scale has prompted institutional recognition, with the Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Indian Diaspora (2022) identifying students as one of India’s major diaspora categories. Student mobility has thus moved from being an elite exception to a defining feature of India’s outward migration.
The Myth of Democratised Foreign Education
The expansion is often framed as greater social inclusion in global education. However, the lived reality is more uneven. A large share of Indian students are channelled into lower-tier universities, private vocational colleges and loosely regulated institutions, frequently through education agents operating in legal grey zones.
These recruitment networks are often tied to profit-driven colleges abroad, where commissions, rather than academic quality or labour-market outcomes, determine admissions. As a result, many students enrol in courses misaligned with their skills and with limited employment prospects, setting the stage for deskilling and underemployment.
From Degrees to Deskilling Abroad
The consequences of this model are stark in destination countries. In the United Kingdom, universities that emerged from former polytechnics after 1992 now rely heavily on international students. Entry requirements are sometimes diluted, raising concerns about academic standards. Evidence suggests that only about one in four Indian postgraduates in the U.K. manages to secure a sponsored skilled visa.
Similar patterns are visible elsewhere. Restricted post-study work options, weak placement support and tightening visa regimes push many graduates into low-wage, unskilled employment unrelated to their qualifications. What begins as educational migration often morphs into survival labour migration.
Kerala and the Changing Geography of Migration
Kerala illustrates this transformation vividly. Traditionally associated with Gulf labour migration, the State has seen a sharp rise in student migration. The Kerala Migration Survey 2023 reports that the number of student migrants doubled from 1.29 lakh in 2018 to 2.5 lakh in 2023, accounting for over 11% of all emigrants.
This shift also alters remittance flows. Outward student-related remittances from Kerala are estimated at ₹43,378 crore, nearly 20% of the State’s inward remittances from labour migrants. Education migration, once seen as investment, increasingly resembles a sustained financial outflow.
Reverse Remittances and the Debt Trap
Most students migrate through self-financing or education loans, often mortgaging family property. The expectation is that overseas employment will enable debt repayment and upward mobility. For many, however, this promise remains unfulfilled.
High tuition fees, rising rents, restricted working hours and visa caps intensify financial stress. Students frequently take up multiple low-paid part-time jobs, sometimes undocumented, exposing them to exploitation. When skilled employment fails to materialise, households in India effectively subsidise foreign economies — a process economists describe as reverse remittances.
Who Really Gains from Student Migration?
Host economies derive substantial benefits. In Canada, international students contributed around $30.9 billion to GDP in 2022 and supported over 3.6 lakh jobs. Indian students alone made up about 45% of Canada’s international enrolments in 2023. In the United States, nearly 4 lakh Indian students spend an estimated $7–8 billion annually on tuition and living expenses.
Ironically, this creates a new pool of cheap and flexible labour for OECD countries, resembling Gulf labour migration — except that the costs are borne upfront by migrant households rather than employers.
Aspirations, Identity and Structural Push Factors
The surge in student migration cannot be explained only by shortcomings in Indian universities or domestic job markets. Offshore campuses of Western universities in Dubai or Singapore offer comparable degrees at lower costs, yet attract fewer Indian students.
The pull lies elsewhere. For many, education in OECD countries is tied to long-term settlement, social mobility and symbolic escape from a “third world” identity. This makes student visas an indirect migration pathway rather than a purely academic choice.
Policy Gaps and the Risk of Brain Waste
India’s student migration boom exposes deep contradictions between opportunity and exploitation. Instead of brain gain, the outcome is increasingly brain waste — skilled individuals trapped in low-skilled jobs abroad or forced to return with debt and diminished prospects.
Addressing this requires stronger regulation of education agents, mandatory pre-departure counselling, transparent data on institutions and outcomes, and bilateral agreements that hold foreign colleges accountable for academic and employment claims.
What to Note for Prelims?
- India among top senders of international students globally
- Major destinations: U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Germany
- Parliamentary Committee on Welfare of Indian Diaspora (2022)
- Kerala Migration Survey 2023 findings
- Concept of reverse remittances
What to Note for Mains?
- Student migration as a form of middle-class mobility strategy
- Role of unregulated education agents and private colleges
- Deskilling, underemployment and visa constraints abroad
- Economic impact on host countries versus costs to Indian households
- Policy measures needed to prevent brain waste and exploitation
