QS describes “a gradual reshaping of Indian student mobility by 2030” where the Big Four destinations remain central but with very different positions on the leaderboard. The UK is projected to overtake Canada and the US as the top destination for Indian students. Otherwise, key destinations in the EU are projected to see the fastest growth in Indian enrolments over the rest of this decade – albeit from a smaller base.

Further: “With transnational education and international branch campuses set to expand and mature in India, we could see further mobility changes,” cautions the report. “By 2030, significant volumes of Indian students may study at the branch campuses of international institutions, rather than travelling overseas.”

The overall picture is one of a broadening and more balanced distribution of Indian students, both within the Big Four and otherwise. While Canada and the US are both projected to see their Indian enrolments decrease through 2030, they continue host significant numbers. Germany is projected to see the largest gains with a forecast to nearly double its Indian enrolment, at which point it will have surpassed Australia as the fourth-largest host of Indian students.

“Demand from Indian students looking to study in the ‘Big Four’ is expected to remain substantial,” says QS. “But students’ choices are likely to be shaped by affordability, visa policy, post-study work opportunities and perceptions of long-term value.”

We recently highlighted the continuing strong growth of India’s middle class, and in particular its expansion outside of the major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad as people move to smaller cities to escape high costs of living.

We noted as well that India’s middle-class families are cautious, careful, and looking for value for money. Where the affluent class is able to make decisions based on rankings and other markers of prestige, the middle class is more interested in institutions in destinations with welcoming policies, lower tuition and living costs, and strong post-graduate outcomes.

These are some of the same drivers that we see reflected in the QS analysis which concludes that, “Institutions in established destinations will need to work harder to defend their position, while universities in fast-growing markets have an opportunity to build visibility with Indian students looking for credible alternatives.”

For additional background, please see:

• “Changing landscape for student recruitment in India calls for new strategies“
• “The questions families are actually asking: Inside the student advising conversation in 2026“
• “What is happening to student mobility flows between the Global South and Global North?“

The post The outlook for Indian student mobility through 2030 appeared first on 91ɬ��Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

Today the session starts somewhere else. The student still arrives with a list. But the first question now usually comes from the parent, and it is rarely about a university at all. Will this degree pay back the years and the money? Will it still be relevant when my child graduates? Will artificial intelligence make it obsolete before the loan is repaid?

I have heard versions of these three questions in counselling rooms in Chandigarh, Manila, Lagos, and Bogota. They are asked quietly, sometimes almost apologetically, but they are serious questions, and they shape family decisions worth billions of dollars every year. They have also quietly changed what good student advising looks like.

Why the counselling room matters

It is easy to underestimate how much of international education still runs through a single conversation between a family and an adviser. According to the American International Recruitment Council, 44% of international students rely on recruitment agents to help them decide what and where to study. And the reason they are in that room has changed too. Career development is now the number one motivator for studying abroad, cited by 67% of students in IDP’s Emerging Futures research. Students are not just buying an experience any more. They are buying a working future.

That places advisers at a point of real leverage. The counselling conversation is where family hopes meet market reality, often for the first time. When expectations shift, advisers feel it before institutions do, and long before policy makers do. Which is why what we are hearing in those rooms now deserves attention.

From prestige to proof

When we ran the fieldwork for the this year, covering 4,812 agents, students, institution leaders and employers across 25 countries, one pattern came through more strongly than any other: families have stopped asking for prestige and started asking for proof.

In South Asia, 89% of recruitment agents told us their top request from institutions is now skill-mapped programme documentation, not brochures. In North America, agents named post-study visa clarity and programme-level outcome data as the top two concerns students bring to them, at 78% and 71%. Across regions, parents increasingly ask employment questions before they ask admission questions.

The shift makes sense once you see the counselling room from the family’s side. A ranking describes an institution. But a family is not buying an institution. They are buying one specific degree, and they want to know what happens to the people who finish it. Institution-level averages do not answer that. Programme-level outcomes do, and families have worked this out faster than much of the sector has.

The safety net that isn’t there

For a long time, advising had a comfortable answer to the anxiety behind these questions: choose a good university, and if the job market changes, you can always reskill later. Our research suggests that answer no longer holds.

Across OECD countries, only 8% of adults take part in formal, accredited learning in a given year, and the open online courses that were supposed to close the gap complete at a median rate of 12.6%. Meanwhile, 53% of the technical skills a graduate learns in year one are judged obsolete within three years. Skills are going out of date roughly six times faster than the system replaces them. Reskilling after work exists, but as a safety net for an entire generation, it is thin. Families who press on curriculum quality before enrolment, rather than trusting the system to patch things later, are being rational.

What is more encouraging is what employers told us they actually hire on. In our survey, 73% of employers said they hire recent international graduates primarily for durable skills, things like communication, judgment, ethical behaviour, and the ability to work across cultures, rather than for a specific technical stack. Technical tools change. These capabilities compound. For an adviser, that is a genuinely useful message to carry into a conversation with an anxious parent: the degree that protects your child is not the one with the most fashionable specialisation, it is the one that builds the skills that survive the tools.

Will AI make it obsolete?

We put that exact fear under a microscope in this year’s Barometer. Comparing internationally-mobile graduates against domestically-educated peers in the same fields, employers placed 71% of the internationally-mobile group in AI-augmented roles, work where AI expands what one person can do rather than replacing them, against 54% for domestic graduates. Only 6% of the internationally-mobile group sat in roles at material AI-displacement risk. For domestic graduates in the same fields, that figure was 14%, over twice as high. PwC’s analysis of nearly a billion job postings found the same pattern at market scale: workers with AI skills now command a 56% wage premium globally, more than double what it was a year earlier.

None of this makes the advantage automatic. It is built on the durable skills, the cross-cultural fluency and the sequenced curriculum design that produced it in the first place. But it does mean an adviser can answer a parent’s hardest question with a number instead of a reassurance.

What good advising looks like now

None of this requires advisers to become labour economists. In our work with counselling teams, the practices that are working are simple ones.

The first is to ask institutions for programme-level employment data, in writing, rather than settling for institution-level claims. Institutions that have this data increasingly share it, and the act of asking signals what families now expect.

The second is to talk to parents about durable skills directly. Parents understand instinctively that communication, adaptability and integrity matter at work. Naming them as the core of a degree’s value, with evidence, answers the AI question far better than reassurance does.

The third is to screen recommended programmes for work-integrated learning and international cohorts. Internships, placements and genuinely mixed classrooms are where durable skills form, and they show up later in employment outcomes. Arizona State University’s National Work-Integrated Learning Accelerator now generates 1.8 million experiential-learning hours per student cohort. In the Netherlands, international graduates who complete structured cross-cultural programmes actually out-earn their domestic peers, 48% of them clear €55,000 a year against 44% of domestic graduates in the same bracket. Programmes built this way are not hard to find once an adviser starts asking for them by name.

The fourth is simply to keep the post-study visa picture current for every destination, because in several markets it has become the first question, not the last.

Advising as trust infrastructure

There is one more finding from our study worth sitting with. Among UK-bound students we surveyed, 64% said they would still choose the UK despite recent visa changes, provided programme-level employment data was transparent. Read that carefully: even in a market facing policy headwinds, transparency holds demand. Families are not asking for perfect conditions. They are asking to see the evidence and decide for themselves.

That, to me, is the real story of how counselling is changing. The adviser’s role is shifting from gatekeeper of options to interpreter of evidence. It is less glamorous than selling dreams, and considerably more valuable. Students get decisions they can defend at the kitchen table. Institutions that publish honest outcomes get rewarded for it. And the sector gets something it badly needs, which is trust built one family conversation at a time.

The questions parents ask in counselling rooms are harder than they were five years ago. That is not a problem to be managed. It is the clearest sign we have that families are taking the decision seriously, and the sector should answer them in kind.

– Dr Priya Ranganathan is research director at MSM Unify, where she leads the company’s global research programme, including the annual MSM Unify Global Skills Barometer, a study of agents, students, institution leaders and employers across 25 countries. MSM Unify is a global education platform supporting institutions, students, and channel partners across international education markets. MSM Unify helps institutions strengthen student recruitment, enrolment management, and education delivery through technology, services, and global market expertise.

For additional background, please see:

• Readers who want to explore contemporary counselling issues more closely should consider , newly released by 91ɬ��Academy in partnership with Successful Graduate
• “Global agent survey reveals international students’ top concerns are visa uncertainty and affordability“
• “What students want: The top decision factors for study abroad“

The post The questions families are actually asking: Inside the student advising conversation in 2026 appeared first on 91ɬ��Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

The answer used to be pretty simple: the Big Four. Just a couple of years ago, Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US welcomed more than 70% of all Indian students abroad, offering a range of quality study opportunities, post-study work rights, and the possibility of immigration.

But a combination of factors is changing (1) the shape of Indian student mobility, (2) the drivers of that mobility, and (3) the profile of Indian students most likely to consider study abroad.

Weakening demand for Big Four destinations

Readers of 91ɬ��Monitor are well aware of policies that are making it more difficult for students from the Global South to study in Australia, Canada, the UK, and US. In brief, these include reduced incentives for immigration, changes to work rights, high visa rejection rates, steeper visa application fees and/or other costs of study, and high costs of living. Some of the following statistics indicate the effect of policies that discourage Indian students from applying to Big Four countries at this time:

• High visa rejection rates: 61% in the US (2025), 62% in Canada (Q1 2026), and 60% in Australia (February 2026);
• Declining visa applications: for example, in Canada, Indian study permit applications fell from 35% of the total in 2023 to 17% in 2025;
• Fewer new students: for example, commencements fell by -33% in the UK between 2022/23 and 2024/25, -5.5% in Australia in 2025 versus 2024, and -44% in the US for F-1 visas in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.

Other destinations gaining share

Indian students are diverting their interest to alternative destinations. From 2024 to 2025, Indian enrolments rose by:

• +21% in Russia;
• +20% in Germany;
• +20% in Ireland;
• +18% in New Zealand;
• +17% in France;
• +5% in Italy.

New drivers of Indian outbound mobility

India’s affluent and middle classes are growing rapidly. Goldman Sachs estimates that the “affluent” cohort nearly tripled from 24 million people in 2015 to about 60 million in 2023, and the firm predicts that this cohort will reach 100 million by 2027.

As for the middle class, Oxford Economics notes:

“India’s middle class is the second largest [after China] in emerging markets at just over 27 million households, but it’s roughly the same size as Brazil’s, which has a population seven times smaller. By 2029, India’s middle class will more than double in size to reach 62 million households.”

The size and growth of a country’s middle class is important to all global product and service companies because it indicates robust and burgeoning purchasing power. Middle-class consumers are able to go beyond satisfying basic needs (e.g., food and shelter) to seeking quality and prestigious brands. They are thus more likely to be interested in – and able to pay for – programmes at foreign universities that result in well-regarded and internationally recognised degrees.

The following chart shows the rapid forecasted rise of the middle class in India (as you can see, the Philippines, Vietnam, Egypt, and Thailand are also notable in this regard).

What’s the catch?

If we move beyond middle-class statistical indicators, the picture becomes more complex. As marketing intelligence firm notes of India’s middle class:

“Simply put, prudence in everything so as to feel safe, secure and comfortable. Always aspirational but rarely overambitious. This cohort is perhaps becoming more inscrutable and not as easy to please as they perhaps have been in the past.”

India’s middle-class households may be moving from “need” to “want” in their purchasing mindset, but that doesn’t mean that “want” always translates to “buy.” Indian fintech company estimates that India’s “middle-class salaried household” spending is spread across three categories:

• “39% goes to obligatory expenses – things like loan [payments], insurance premiums, and rent. These are the non-negotiables that hit before anything else.
• 32% goes to necessities – groceries, utilities, fuel, medical expenses, school fees. Things you need but have some control over.
• 29% goes to discretionary spending – dining out, entertainment, subscriptions, clothing, travel, and everything else.”

SalarySe explains:

“That 29% discretionary figure sounds generous until you remember it’s the last call on a budget that’s already been carved up by rent, [loan payments], school fees, and petrol. In practice, it’s where the most emotional spending happens, and where the most guilt tends to follow.”

As a result, India’s middle-class families are necessarily cautious, careful, and looking for value for money. Where the affluent class is able to make decisions based on rankings and other markers of prestige, the middle class is more interested in institutions in destinations with welcoming policies, lower tuition and living costs, and strong post-graduate outcomes. It may take more time and resources to convince families in this cohort that a university is worth their money.

This is especially true given that the number of quality higher education institutions in India is rising. India stands out as the country that sent more universities (eight) into the 2026 World University Rankings for the first time than any other country – and that is in a field of 106 countries. Over a span of 12 years, India’s higher education system has risen more quickly in the rankings than any other G20 country.

India is also notable for its interest in partnerships with foreign universities and transnational education arrangements such as branch campuses and joint programmes. The Indian government has official strategies aimed at reducing brain drain, and it is at least as interested in partnering with foreign universities and attracting international students as it is in sending students abroad.

What does it all mean?

India’s middle class is expanding the most significantly outside of major metropolises such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad, as people move to smaller cities to escape high costs of living. More families are now able to consider study abroad in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and rural areas than in the past.

Because characteristics of the middle class will vary across cities and regions, working with vetted, proven education agents and forming relationships with top Indian universities and schools is more crucial today than ever. Ensuring that agents are reputable – with strong track records and demonstrated ethics – is key, especially for institutions in Big Four destinations where visa rejection rates are high.

Just as important is developing proof points on the institutional website, through alumni and student ambassadors, and in all communications that enrolling with your university delivers amazing value for money. This means collecting data on post study outcomes; being completely transparent with costs; and offering distinguishing features such as applications assistance, comprehensive support services, internships, and institution-employer connections.

Quite simply, Indian families have been spooked by policy developments in the Big Four. They will need more reassurance, proof, and support from institutions and agents alike. They have more options – as enrolment data in alternative destinations clearly shows. As a result, India represents a more discerning – while still very promising – source of international students.

For additional background, please see:

• “What is happening to student mobility flows between the Global South and Global North?”
• “The number of Indian students abroad fell in 2025”
• “How post-study work rights can make or break the return on investment for study abroad”

The post Changing landscape for student recruitment in India calls for new strategies appeared first on 91ɬ��Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

It is no coincidence that the Key Five are all emerging countries in the Global South, where large proportions of students are open to emigrating, temporarily or permanently, because of limited local opportunities. This makes immigration officials tend to question whether study visa applicants are genuine students – i.e., interested in quality education, a high-skilled job, and remaining compliant with visa conditions – or individuals with little intent to study and great intent to migrate in any way they can. Unfortunately, many genuine students from the Global South are disadvantaged in their applications because of where they are from.

The impact of the visa rejection trend for students from emerging economies in Asia and Africa could be enormous across the global international education landscape – and beyond. Already, it is spurring fewer visa grants, reduced recruiting in high-risk markets, and more withdrawals from students eager to avoid a rejection on their student profile. Not surprisingly, commencements are trending down in leading study destinations, and this will pressure overall enrolments in the years ahead.

In this article, we will look at Key Five origin countries with regards to:

• Their importance to overall enrolments across the Big Four;
• Recent study visa rejection rates;
• Commencement trends (i.e., the volume of new students provided a study visa allowing them to enrol in a Big Four education institution).

Contribution to overall international student numbers

According to the most recent available enrolment data, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Nigeria, and Pakistan compose anywhere from 30% to 40%+ of the entire international student body in Big Four destinations.

Visa rejection rates for the Key Five

Having looked at the huge presence of Key Five students in the total international student populations of the Big Four, we’ll turn to recent visa refusal trends (where official data are available).

Bangladesh: Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Bangladeshi applicants for US F-1 visas were turned away in 2025. Bangladeshi students have in recent years been very likely to receive a visa for Australia (about a 5% rejection rate in 2024/25), but in February 2026, more than half (51%) of offshore applicants from Bangladesh were refused.

India: Indian students, who represent either the #1 or #2 source market across the Big Four, are now quite likely to be refused a study visa in those destinations. Rejection rates were 61% in the US (2025), 80% in Canada (Q2 2025), and 60% in Australia (February 2026). While only 7.5% were denied a sponsored study visa in the UK in Q4 2025–Q1 2026, this this was up from less than 4% in winter 2024/25.

Nepal: More than 8 in 10 (81%) Nepali applicants were rejected for a US F-1 visa in 2025, and in February 2026, the Australian study visa rejection rate for Nepal soared to 65%. Interestingly, Nepali students were more likely to be approved for a UK sponsored study visa in winter 2025/26 than in winter 2024/25, bucking the general trend for emerging markets (see chart below).

Nigeria: Since December 2025, Nigerians have been included in an expanded travel ban announced by the US administration, along with dozens of other countries (mostly in Africa and Asia). In the UK, sponsored study rejections for Nigerian students used to be rare (less than 5%), but in winter 2025/26, 20% of Nigerian applicants were turned away. In Canada, between 70–80% were refused a study permit in in 2025.

Pakistan: More than 70% of Pakistanis were refused an F-1 visa in the US in 2026, and more than 6 in 10 offshore applicants from Pakistan were denied an Australian study visa in February 2026. Like Nigerians, Pakistani students applying for a sponsored study visa in the UK saw their rejection rate spike massively in winter 2025/26: increasing from 5.6% to 41% year-over-year.

These rejection rates for Key Five countries represent an absolutely huge number of potential students turned away.

What is happening to commencements?

Key Five commencements (new student entrants) are falling across the Big Four, with less than a handful of exceptions.
 
A striking example is F-1 visa issuances in the US in July/August of 2024 compared with July/August 2025. The percentages in the table below are based on our analysis of data from the US Department of State. It bears mentioning that in September of 2025 (not shown in the table), F-1 commencements fell further for Bangladesh (-69%), Nepal (-96%), Nigeria (-33%), and Pakistan (-9%) compared with September 2024.

In the UK, the following chart from HESA shows the dramatic drop-off in Indian (turquoise) and Nigerian (navy blue) commencements between 2023/24 and 2024/25: -13% and -33%, respectively. Over the span of two years (2022/23 to 2024/25), the declines were even more serious: -33% for India (126,580 to 94,955) and -132% for Nigeria (53,790 to 23,160).

In Canada, new student arrivals (from all nationalities) fell from 208,750 in 2024 to 115,120 in 2025. In January to April 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, arrivals were down -73% to about 200,000. There is no publicly available government information for specific markets, but the Times of India reports that between January and August 2025, Canada issued just 9,955 new study permits to Indian students.

In Australia, overall commencements fell by about -15% between 2024 and 2025, but this decline was concentrated in sectors other than higher education (the number of new international students in Australian universities edged up slightly in that time period). There was more of a mixed bag of commencement trends for the Key Five than in Canada, the UK, and US. Between 2024 and 2025, Indian and Pakistani commencements fell by -3.5% and -33%, respectively, while Nepal was up +33.5% and Bangladesh +33%.

The implications will stretch beyond international education

Our Key Five markets – Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Nigeria, and Pakistan – can be viewed as roughly representative of what is happening to mobility influences and flows between the Global South and Big Four destinations. They serve to show how immigration policies (and/or policy effects) in the Big Four are affecting demand from top non-EU markets. These policies, especially if they stretch on in time, could lead to:

• An intensification of existing challenges for the operations of hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools across the Big Four. Those institutions are often highly reliant on international student tuition amid declining domestic enrolments and/or public funding. Chinese commencements (which, for decades, were an important source of overall growth) are falling, and emerging markets in Asia and Africa have helped to mitigate the impact.

• Alternative destinations gaining a greater share of the world’s internationally mobile students (this is already happening – see From the Big Four to the Big Fourteen for background).



• A decline in the economic contribution of international education in the Big Four.



• A weakening of innovation and productivity in Big Four economies. India, in particular, contributes a large volume of STEM students and workers to Western nations.



• An erosion of the soft power of the Big Four in the Global South.

Methodological note

Data analyses are based on statistics from:

• The Australian
• (IRCC)
• The UK’s (HESA)
• The in the US

For additional information, please see:

• “UK: International student numbers fall for second year, especially in postgraduate programmes“
• “UK: Sponsored study visa issuances down, rejection rates up, and more“
• “There are more international students in the US than ever in 2025, but commencements are declining“
• “Visa rejections climb in the US for international students from key markets including India“
• “New international student permit approvals for Canada fell below COVID levels in 2025“
• “Australia: Multiple data indicators signal further declines ahead for international student numbers“
• “Australia: Latest enrolment data challenges the government’s assertion of stability for international education this year“

The post What is happening to student mobility flows between the Global South and Global North?  appeared first on 91ɬ��Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

The link between higher education enrolment and jobs

The number of students enrolled in India’s higher education system has more than tripled in the past 15 years to a Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) of 28%, and the government’s target is a GER of 50% by 2035. But the pace of enrolment growth is slowing, and it is doing so in tandem with a slowing of income gains for graduates since 2017.

The APU report offers some sobering statistics:

• Under 7% of graduates in India secure permanent salaried jobs within one year of graduation.
• Of those who do, less than 4% land white-collar positions.
• 40% of graduates aged 15–25 and 20% of those aged 25–29 are unemployed.
• Of the roughly 5 million graduates India produces each year, barely 2.8 million find jobs, with even fewer securing salaried work.
• While on average, graduates still make double the amount of money over the course of their lifetime than those without higher education, the pace of wage growth for them has slowed since 2017.
• The proportion of young men in school is declining – from 38% in 2017 to 34% in 2024.

Tenuous pathways from education to good jobs for women

Among poorer Indian families, the motivation to save precious income for university studies has always been to escape informal and/or poorly paid occupations in agriculture and construction. Between 2007 and 2017, the share of students from India’s poorest households enrolled in higher education rose from 8% to 17%, and while this happened, a growing number of new jobs were created outside of agriculture.

Still, nearly half of all work remains in the agricultural sector, and almost two-thirds of all Indian women working are employed in that sector. Many of them are the first in their family to hold a degree – and they invested in that degree precisely to get out of agricultural work.

A March 2026 article by the sums up the differing outcomes of segments of female graduates:

“At one end, a small but growing cohort of educated and skilled women is entering salaried roles in IT, automobile manufacturing, and business services. At the other, far larger end, most of the increase is in self-employment and unpaid or home-based work, often within households or family enterprises. This signals necessity rather than opportunity. The result is a statistical rise in participation that masks a qualitative divide: opportunity at the top, compulsion at the bottom.”

In March 2025, interviewed 27-year-old Geetanjali Devi, 27, who holds a bachelor’s degree in history. Now, Geetanjali works on her family’s rural farm in the state of Bihar near the border with Nepal. Her husband is not with her: “Like the majority of men in the village, he spends most of the year working construction in the southern state of Kerala, earning $8 a day more than 1,000 miles away.”

Men are also losing hope

Disappointing job prospects are dampening Indian men’s demand for higher education. APU’s study notes that in 2017, 58% of young men cited economic pressure as the reason for not continuing their studies. Only five years later in 2023, this proportion rose significantly to 72%.

Without a degree, more Indian men are turning to informal jobs to meet urgent household needs for cash. They cannot wait to see if the economic returns of higher education will pay off over the long term.

More industry linkages are needed

As reported in a January 2026 article, new survey results from India’s TeamLease EdTech, a provider of employability solutions and educational technology for higher education, show that “75% of higher education institutions in India are not adequately prepared to meet industry expectations.” Only 7% of the 1,000 representatives from wide swath of institutions surveyed said they were achieving placement rates above 75%.

According to the report, ‘”industry relevance is often treated as an add-on rather than a fundamental design principle,” resulting in graduates who emerge with “theoretical knowledge that lacks direct applicability in a modern workplace shaped by technology, automation, and evolving business models.”

There are, of course, high-quality institutions that do prioritise industry linkages, but wealthier students have a much better chance of (1) affording these and the higher-ROI courses such as engineering they offer, and (2) obtaining good jobs as a result of this and their social connections to those in power.

The national urgency

The APU report notes:

“India’s youth population, defined as those between the ages of 15 to 29, is the largest in the world. The 367 million people in this age group account for a third of the country’s working age population. The extent to which this large, increasingly educated and aspirational cohort is productively absorbed into the labour market will determine whether this massive, and continuing demographic dividend translates into an economic dividend.”

Much will depend on whether India can provide more linkages from education to good jobs for segments other than the wealthiest students. If not, the number of degree-holding women left on farms to manage subsistence agriculture will increase, and the number of men who trust higher education to increase their income prospects quickly, rather than over a lifetime, will decrease.

The urgency is real. The Washington Post reports: “Indians are now poorer than Hondurans on a per capita basis. More than half of those of working age are unable to find a place in the formal economy.”

For additional background, please see:

• “Is a university degree still the same passport to success?”
• “Canada and India deepen educational ties; India repositions as an equal player in international education”
• “The number of Indian students abroad fell in 2025”

The post Study highlights poor outcomes for graduates of Indian higher education appeared first on 91ɬ��Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

India, like China, has cultivated an eclectic mix of political and economic alliances across multiple regions. It is as likely to partner with the US as with Russia, and it works closely with France, Germany, Japan, and Australia on joint goals in the spheres of military, technology, and trade. In 2026, India has renewed ties with Canada under Prime Minister Mark Carney after a years-long diplomatic rift.

Higher education has become another area of strength: the number of top-ranked Indian higher education institutions is growing. In the 2026 QS world ranking, 54 Indian institutions were featured. This is five times as many as in 2015.

For all these reasons – as well as US President Trump’s dismantling of the post-WWII world order of alliances – India is an increasingly coveted trade and education partner. It is now negotiating from a very different position than it has historically: a position of strength, as an equal partner.

This is nowhere more evident than in international education. India is no longer just a source of students for the Big Four (Australia, Canada, UK, and US) – it is ever more a country with which the Big Four partner under mutually beneficial terms.

This reality is well illustrated by the warming India-Canada relationship in 2026.

The Canada–India Talent and Innovation Strategy

In February 2026, representatives from 20 top Canadian institutions travelled to India to explore partnerships centred on common areas of interest and specialisation with Indian counterparts. There, the was launched by Universities Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan). Notably, Prime Minister Carney as well as Foreign Minister Anita Anand were present in Mumbai for the official launch, signalling the importance of the Strategy to Canada.

Out of that event alone, 13 new MOUs were signed (see ). Collectively, the MOUs cover student and faculty exchanges; joint academic programming; dual credentials; embedded work experience; post-study progressions into jobs; research collaboration including potential TNE arrangements and STEM projects such as clean energy and AI; and pathways from Indian programmes to Canadian programmes.

The collaborative approach signalled by the new Strategy is more than evident in the statements prepared by Minister Anand and Universities Canada President Gabriel Miller. Count the number of times “partner” or “partnership” appear in their quotes:

Minister Anand: “Canada and India are natural partners in education, innovation and research. Canada welcomes the new Canada–India Talent and Innovation Strategy that will create opportunities for students and researchers, drive economic growth, and reinforce the strong people-to-people ties that connect our two countries.”

Mr Miller: “This is a new chapter in a very important relationship, and it demands a new partnership on higher education and research, which is vital to the future of both our countries. We are building the foundations of a long-term partnership that will create good jobs, better incomes and communities that can thrive in a highly competitive global economy.”

An invitation to ambassadors

Also in February, Indian Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan addressed the Study in India Edu-Diplomatic Conclave 2026 in New Delhi. In attendance were ambassadors, high commissioners, and diplomats from over 50 countries. With Indian officials, participants discussed strengthening international cooperation in higher education.

As per an article in The Hindustan Times: “[Minister Pradhan] called upon the Excellencies to collaborate with India’s fast-growing, innovation-driven, multidisciplinary and access-friendly education system.”

Minister Pradhan told the assembly that “Indian institutions are deepening global engagement through joint, dual and twinning programmes, while premier universities are expanding their international footprint.” He made particular mention of the Global South and distanced it from its colonialist interpretation: “From artificial intelligence, biotechnology and semiconductors to sustainable energy, India is emerging as a trusted innovation partner, advancing a Global South model rooted in collaboration, capacity-building and shared knowledge.”

The foreign diplomats were told that India’s previously unstructured and unregulated environment for branch campuses has been replaced with “a transparent and time-bound regulatory framework” that has seen top institutions in Australia, Italy, the UK, and the US cleared within a month.

A redefinition of India

Canada’s flurry of education and research agreements with India are but an example of momentum in the Big Four to move from a purely recruitment-focused model – i.e., enrolling Indian students at home – to a partnership model. In recent months, the UK, Spain, and Australia have all sent similar delegations to build new partnerships in India.

The shift happens as:

• The number of Indian students studying abroad in 2025 fell by -5.7% compared with 2024, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs;
• The number of first-time Indian students in UK institutions fell -12% in 2024/25, the second year of decline;
• In Australia, Indian commencements were down -8% in January–September 2025;
• In the first half of 2025, Canada granted 9,995 study permits to Indian students – down from 76,930 in the same period in 2024 and 149,875 in 2023;
• In the US, F-1 visas issued to Indian students fell by -44% in the first half of 2025 versus the first half of 2024.

For additional background, please see:

• “The number of Indian students abroad fell in 2025“
• “The UK is quickly expanding its TNE footprint in India”

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The decline dovetails with a longer pattern of slower outbound growth from China. Educators in major destination countries have been mitigating the Chinese trend by leaning more heavily into recruiting in India. But the new data shows that relying too heavily on India for enrolment volumes is not without risk. The -5.7% decline is moderate, but it nevertheless highlights the ongoing need for diversification in recruiting overseas students.

More hesitancy in the marketplace

This year has been a challenging one for many prospective international students and their parents – in India and elsewhere. The stricter regulatory environments in Australia, Canada, the UK, and US (aka the Big Four) have introduced uncertainty into the marketplace. Policies affecting both prospects and current students are proposed and/or announced frequently – but not predictably.

As a result, destinations other than the Big Four are now much more likely than in the past to be seriously considered for degree programmes. This trend has been intensified by (1) a growing number of highly ranked universities across Europe and Asia, and (2) the expansion of English-taught programmes in those universities and regions. Germany, New Zealand, France, and Ireland are all seeing more growth from the Indian market at the same time as demand for Big Four countries weakens.

Trends in the Big Four

Canada remains the top preference for Indians according to the MEA data, followed by the US, UK, and Australia. But recent trends show the UK gaining on the rest of the Big Four.

Canada: The number of Indian study permit holders fell from 533,305 in 2023 to 510,235 in 2024 according to . When full-year data for 2025 is released, there will be a much more significant drop given that:

• Between January and August 2025, – compared with 149,875 for the same period in 2023 and 76,930 in 2024.
• The proportion of Indian study permit applicants fell from 35% in 2023 to 17% in 2025.
• Indian students are being rejected at a higher rate than the average: compared to an all-country average of 58%.

United States: Enrolments of Indian students in US higher education institutions grew from 331,600 in 2023 to . But in the first half of 2025, F-1 visa issuances to Indian students compared with the same period in 2024. Chinese visa issuances also fell, but not as steeply (-24%). In contrast, the number of Vietnamese students receiving F-1 visas jumped by 20% in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.

adds: “If current trends continue, it’s possible Chinese students will become the largest incoming international student population in the US for the first time in four years.”

Australia: While Indian enrolments in Australia are now at an all-time high, commencements are declining. In the period January to September 2025, were enrolled in Australian institutions (across sectors) – up +4% over 2024. The growth was fuelled by rising enrolments in universities, as shown in the following chart from MacroBusiness.com depicting trends in the first half of the year.

However, Indian commencements were down , and Australia also saw fewer new students from its number one market, China (-9%).

The Australian government is prioritising India as a talent pipeline through numerous recent agreements, but it is also applying greater scrutiny to Indian prospects given relatively high levels of fraud detected in this market. Australia’s vocational sector (VET) is particularly affected by high rates of visa refusals for Indian students.

United Kingdom: Indian enrolments are growing despite earlier signs that the Dependants Ban might depress demand. Up to June 2025, Indian students were granted almost as many sponsored study visas (98,015) as Chinese students (99,920), with an approval rate of 96%. In Q2 alone, visa grants for Indian students surged by +44% compared with a -35% decrease for Chinese students. Indian demand at the master’s level is extremely high, with 81% of Indian students approved for master’s level courses.

Alternative destinations on the rise

Germany has become a much more popular destination for Indian students. In fact, DAAD reports that the number of Indian students in German universities – from 28,905 to 59,420. India is Germany’s number one market by a considerable margin, followed by China and Türkiye. Engineering is by far the top draw, with 60% of all Indian students in Germany enrolled in this field of study.

New Zealand: There are nearly 12,000 Indian students in New Zealand in 2025 (across sectors) – a stable number from 2024 after two years of very high growth (+99% in 2023 and +49% in 2024).

France: India is not yet in France’s top 10 list of student source markets, but it is close at 11th. In 2024/25, Indian enrolments in French universities grew +17% over the previous year to 9,100 students, and that growth is set to increase quickly: France has a goal of hosting .

Ireland: In 2023/24, India overtook the US as the top international segment in Irish universities, growing 50% over the previous year to over 7,000 enrolments.

For additional background, please see:

• “Global trends in international enrolments and policies as we head into 2026”
• “Canada and the US are losing international student enrolments to Europe and Asia”

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The twenty years between 1990 and 2010 saw a rapid expansion of student mobility. The number of students pursuing higher education credentials abroad increased by 5.4–5.9% per year, on average – a much higher rate of growth than in the previous two decades. The reason, in a word, was China.

China was the main contributor to student mobility growth from 1970 until about 2015 on the back of its roaring economy, burgeoning middle class, and massive gaps between student demand for higher education and capacity at reputable Chinese universities. These factors propelled large numbers of Chinese students abroad for many years. Most of them were self-funded, and many of them were just as likely to return home after their studies as they were to stay on in their host destination to work.

Chinese students shaped educators’ understanding of international students in general. Their priorities were assumed to be foreign students’ priorities…until fairly recently.

Evolving needs

Now, students’ top-of-mind concerns centre on the costs of study abroad. This manifests in several ways, including interest in work opportunities during and after study abroad, greater price sensitivity in the marketplace, and the growing popularity of affordable study destinations.

Chinese students are no exception. China’s economy has cooled in recent years and its youth face historically high unemployment rates. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese families became more hesitant about study abroad, more worried about safety, and less convinced that investing in a foreign degree will provide the same benefits as it used to.

New expectations

The composition of foreign enrolment in many destinations has changed substantially over the past 10 years. There is a far greater diversity of students coming from all over the world and much greater outbound flows from South Asia and Africa.

Tens of thousands of students are now from lower-middle-income countries in which the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita is between US$1,136 and $4,495. These dynamic sending markets include Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, and at least a dozen others. In Nepal, fully one in five students now chooses to leave their country for tertiary education.

Considering the low GNI in those countries, there is an associated need among many students to work during and after studies; to carefully examine the costs of study and living in various study destinations; and to choose programmes most strongly linked to positive career outcomes.

Inside the numbers

In 2010, there were just over four million students abroad in higher education. Roughly 1.3 million – almost 31% of the total – were from China, and in that year alone, the number of Chinese outbound students surged by 24%.

That same year, there were just over 330,000 students from South Asia studying abroad, with most coming from India. The number of African students was about the same.

By 2019, the global total of international students rose to six million. Nearly three in ten (28%) were from China, but roughly as many were from key markets in South Asia – including over a million from India. Meanwhile, the number of African students abroad reached nearly half a million.

By 2024, student mobility had rebounded from the pandemic, and almost seven million students were abroad. However, a much greater range of countries contributed to that outbound trend than in 2010 and 2019. The number of Chinese students dipped to just over one million (or about 14% of the total) while the number of Indian students climbed to an estimated 1.3 million, representing nearly 19% of the total in 2024. Other South Asian markets – notably Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – also registered very strong growth.

Buffeted by economic headwinds at home, the number of African students did not grow significantly in the five years between 2019 and 2024. However, given its massive college-aged population, Africa is expected to figure much more prominently in global mobility trends going forward. To highlight just one indicator of that potential, the United Nations has projected that by 2030, one of every four people on the planet aged 15-24 will live in Africa.

Implications

We have entered an era in which global student flows are heavily shaped by students from South Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

This accelerating trend means that the historical understanding of international students – largely informed by the Chinese students who once greatly outnumbered students from other countries – is outdated. The reality is that the world’s mobile students are more heterogeneous than ever – from varied backgrounds and with unique as
well as common needs.

It is time to double down on brainstorming about how to enhance the study abroad experience for a more diverse range of students. This means creating more detailed student personas; conducting more market intelligence research; reaching out to current international students for insights; examining the range of student services on offer; prioritising integration services; tailoring the website to address concerns and aspirations in top target markets; providing better guidance on immigration rules and visas; and more. It also involves recognising that work rights, career services, and career outcomes have joined quality of education as dominant drivers of student decision-making.

The international students of today – and of the future – will be shopping the market for value and measurable outcomes more carefully than ever before. The most competitive institutions will deliver that ROI in every facet of their offer to students.

For additional background, please see:

• “What students want: The top decision factors for study abroad“
• “The four key trends that will shape international student mobility for the next decade“

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