More than 1.33 million Indian students pursued higher education overseas in 2024, underscoring India’s growing reliance on foreign universities despite having the world’s largest college-age population, according to a report released Monday by government think tank NITI Aayog.
The report found that Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany were the five most preferred destinations for Indian students studying abroad last year.
Canada emerged as the top choice, hosting about 427,000 Indian students in 2024. The United States followed with approximately 337,000, while the United Kingdom accounted for around 185,000 Indian students. Australia ranked fourth with about 122,000, and Germany fifth with nearly 43,000 students from India.
NITI Aayog noted that India has the largest higher-education-age population globally, with nearly 155 million people in the 18 to 23 age group.
The report highlighted a widening imbalance between outgoing and incoming students. In 2024, for every one international student who came to India, about 28 Indian students went abroad for higher education, pointing to a significant “brain drain.”
Titled Internationalisation of Higher Education in India, the report also examined foreign student inflows using data from 2021–22, finding that while outward mobility of Indian students is rising rapidly, the number of international students choosing India remains relatively low.
According to the study, Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia together hosted around 850,000 Indian students, who spent nearly ₹2.9 lakh crore on higher education during the 2023–24 academic year.
The report further noted that some smaller European countries have a particularly high share of Indian students within their international student populations. Latvia had the highest proportion, with Indian students accounting for 17.4 per cent of its foreign enrolment, followed by Ireland at 15.3 per cent and Germany at 10.1 per cent, based on 2020 data.
The findings, NITI Aayog said, highlight both the scale of India’s demand for global education opportunities and the challenges facing its domestic higher education system in attracting and retaining talent.