India is commonly described because the world’s largest supply of worldwide college students, however that headline hides an uncomfortable reality: India doesn’t ship college students overseas evenly. A small cluster of states has dominated outbound mobility for years, whereas huge elements of the nation barely seem within the international classroom. State-wise knowledge from a NITI Aayog evaluation of higher-education internationalisation makes this skew unimaginable to disregard. Between 2016 and 2020 — together with a pandemic 12 months — the identical names recur on the high, in largely the identical order. Mobility fluctuates, volumes dip and get better, however the geography barely modifications. That stability is the story.
The outbound belt: A slim hall, not a nationwide wave
Throughout three benchmark years, Andhra Pradesh persistently leads India in sending college students abroad. Punjab and Maharashtra type a second tier that rotates positions however by no means exits the highest three. Gujarat rises steadily, whereas Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka stay everlasting fixtures.This isn’t a diffusion sample. It’s focus. Even in 2020 — when international journey collapsed — the hierarchy held. Andhra Pradesh remained first. Punjab overtook Maharashtra. Uttar Pradesh, regardless of its scale, slid additional down the listing. The pandemic interrupted mobility, nevertheless it didn’t rearrange it.
Supply: NITI Ayog 2025 report: Internationalisation of Larger Schooling in IndiaWhy inhabitants doesn’t translate into passportsIf outbound schooling have been merely about demographics, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan would dominate the listing. They don’t. That hole reveals an important level: lnternational mobility is much less about aspiration than infrastructure. States that ship essentially the most college students overseas are likely to share 4 traits:
Early publicity to skilled levels
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu aggressively expanded engineering {and professional} schooling within the Nineties and early 2000s. That early pipeline issues. College students skilled in these ecosystems are structurally aligned with international demand for STEM graduates.
A non-public-sector schooling spine
These states host dense networks of personal faculties, test-prep centres, counsellors and abroad admissions intermediaries. This lowers data boundaries and normalises abroad research as a default development, not an exception.
Credit score and danger tolerance
Finding out overseas stays a high-cost wager. What distinguishes high-sending states shouldn’t be merely greater incomes, however the social acceptance of schooling debt and the supply of formal credit score. In locations the place schooling loans are handled as “funding” slightly than ‘reckless legal responsibility’, outbound numbers rise. That is why Punjab, regardless of its dimension, repeatedly punches above its weight.
Migration reminiscence
Diaspora is a pipeline that renews itself. Areas with earlier waves of migration carry a “reminiscence” that reduces uncertainty. Seniors mentor juniors. Households know which faculties are protected bets. Failure feels survivable as a result of somebody you already know has failed and nonetheless landed on their ft. Coverage brochures can’t compete with that.
Locations shifted between 2016 and 2020 however the sending states didn’t
Between 2016 and 2020, the geography of the place Indian college students went modified markedly, whilst who despatched them remained largely the identical.In 2016, the USA was the highest vacation spot for Indian college students, with Canada and Australia following, and the UK additional down the listing. By 2020, that hierarchy had shifted: Canada moved into the highest slot, edging previous the US, whereas the UK climbed and Germany started to register as a significant various. Australia remained a serious vacation spot, however the total pecking order turned extra fluid.
In different phrases, locations proved aware of coverage alerts: Submit-study work routes, visa timelines, value pressures, and perceived settlement pathways. College students and households adjusted. The move bent in the direction of whichever nation provided the clearest mixture of research, work and long-term prospects at that second.However right here is the half that always will get missed. Regardless of this churn in locations, the Indian states supplying these college students barely modified and the numbers present it.
Why vacation spot churn didn’t broaden India’s sending map
States with established outbound ecosystems have been capable of pivot easily as international doorways opened and closed. When Canada expanded post-study work choices, these states channelled college students there. When the UK revived its work route, the identical areas adjusted once more. Even Germany’s gradual rise was largely absorbed by means of college students already embedded in technical {and professional} pipelines.World coverage modifications reshuffled the place college students went — not who was capable of go.For states exterior this hall, the problem was not selecting the “proper” vacation spot. It was clearing the much more fundamental hurdles of data entry, credit score availability, course alignment and danger tolerance. By the point consciousness filtered by means of, the window typically narrowed once more.That’s the reason sudden international openings hardly ever democratise worldwide schooling. They reward readiness, not uncooked aspiration.For college students in high-sending states, the query has lengthy been which nation. For college students elsewhere, it stays whether or not abroad schooling is possible in any respect.
What the persistence tells us and why it ought to fear policymakers
Probably the most placing perception within the knowledge shouldn’t be who leads, however who by no means enters the image.Giant japanese and central states are nearly absent from India’s outbound story. This isn’t as a result of college students there lack ambition, however as a result of international pathways are erratically distributed inside India itself. That unevenness has two long-term penalties:
- World publicity turns into regionally inherited, reinforcing state-level inequality. If the identical states preserve sending and different states stay structurally under-represented, international publicity turns into one thing you inherit by postcode. It’s handed down by means of native ecosystems, not distributed by means of benefit alone.
- Internationalisation stays a privilege layered atop already-advantaged ecosystems. India typically treats “going overseas” as a person success story. However at scale, it mirrors inside inequality. The scholars who entry worldwide levels additionally entry stronger networks, higher-return jobs, and international labour markets. When that is regionally skewed, the inequality turns into state-level and generational.
The bigger irony
India is at the moment courting overseas universities, speaking about international campuses, and branding itself as a global schooling hub. But its personal outbound flows reveal a narrower actuality: solely elements of India are globally cellular.Till worldwide publicity stops being geographically inherited and college students from non-coastal, non-metro, non-migration-heavy states can entry the identical pathways India’s international schooling narrative will stay selective slightly than systemic. The query, then, shouldn’t be why Indian college students go overseas, it’s why so many Indian states nonetheless can’t.
