Foreign universities and higher education: In 2022, nearly 650,000 Indian students packed their bags for universities abroad, draining an estimated ₹1.3 lakh crore in foreign exchange (Ministry of Education, 2022). The numbers expose more than wanderlust; they spotlight the chronic shortcomings of India’s higher-education system—limited world-class programmes, a thin research culture and syllabi that lag global benchmarks. Seeking to plug those gaps and slow the brain drain, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has drafted rules, under the National Education Policy 2020, that would let leading foreign universities set up fully fledged campuses on Indian soil.
Other countries show what is possible. China opened the door after first shoring up its domestic base; joint-venture institutions such as Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool and Duke Kunshan now anchor robust research networks and have lifted local academic standards. Singapore’s early-2000s Global Schoolhouse strategy—offering land, subsidies and regulatory certainty—wooed INSEAD, Duke-NUS and Yale-NUS, helping the city-state evolve into an Asian talent magnet. In both cases, foreign investment was yoked to national priorities.
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An uneven starting line
India begins from a far less even footing. Foundational learning remains brittle: ASER 2022 found sharp declines in basic reading and arithmetic, especially in rural schools. The gross enrolment ratio in higher education is still 27 per cent, versus more than 50 per cent in China and Malaysia (AISHE 2023). Without stronger primary and secondary pipelines, foreign campuses could end up as gilded islands serving a narrow elite.
Yet, if designed well, the policy could pay dividends. Home-grown degrees bearing global marques would cost a fraction of an overseas education, easing family finances and plugging forex leakages. Sharper competition could force Indian universities to modernise pedagogy, improve governance and chase serious research funds: India’s R&D spend is a paltry 0.7 per cent of GDP, against China’s 2.4 per cent (UNESCO, 2021). International campuses could also tighten the academia-industry link, tailoring courses to global labour-market demand and raising graduate employability.
Can India pull it off?
India cannot replicate the subsidy-heavy models of Singapore or the UAE: the exchequer is already stretched by basic education and healthcare. Nor are foreign institutions likely to pour in capital for a mere ten-year licence, as the UGC’s draft rules currently propose. And if fees mirror those at parent campuses and scholarship pools stay thin, only urban, affluent families will benefit—deepening the divide between private and public higher education.
Better pay and labs could lure the country’s scarce top faculty away from public universities, hollowing out institutions that educate the bulk of Indian students.
Add to that India’s reputation for red tape and unresolved questions over academic freedom, degree recognition and profit repatriation. By contrast, Qatar’s Education City demonstrates that generous autonomy and clear rules can entice Georgetown or Carnegie Mellon to stay for the long haul.
First, the government must replace ambiguity with certainty. Offering foreign universities 20- to 30-year licences, time-bound clearances, and explicit guarantees on academic freedom would signal that the government is courting long-term investment, not transient experiments. In return, regulators can insist on transparent governance, audited performance metrics and regular reviews, ensuring that academic quality does not slip even as autonomy is protected.
Second, access must be designed into the financing model from day one. Land grants, tax breaks and other incentives should be tied to concrete commitments: generous need-based scholarships, credit-transfer pathways that link foreign campuses with nearby state universities, and joint research funds that serve national priorities. Such public-private compacts would prevent global brands from becoming elite redoubts while spreading the benefits of cutting-edge pedagogy and industry linkages across the wider system.
Finally, the government must shore up the base of the pyramid—India’s K-12 schooling—so that a diverse, well-prepared cohort can actually enter these new institutions. That means sustained investment in school infrastructure, rigorous teacher-training programmes, and curriculum modernisation that emphasises critical thinking and digital literacy. Without a healthy pipeline of talent, even the most prestigious foreign campuses will operate as islands of excellence adrift in a sea of mediocrity, leaving the structural problems of Indian education untouched.
No Silver Bullet
Surveys such as ICEF Monitor show that students often migrate for work visas, global exposure and multicultural networks—advantages hard to replicate at home. Foreign campuses may therefore slow, but will not stop, outbound mobility.
Still, done right, they can be catalysts. Integrated into national priorities of skilling, innovation and inclusion, they could deepen India’s talent pool and research heft. Done hastily, they risk becoming exclusive redoubts, amplifying inequality and leaving the wider education system untouched.
India’s challenge is to choose the former path—and to back ambition with the patient policy craft that true reform requires.
Vaishnavi Sharma is an undergraduate student, School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences, Krea University. Debdulal Thakur is Dean, Vinayaka Mission’s School of Economics and Public Policy.