If you’ve had to defer or cancel your foreign education plans, there’s good news—foreign education has come to India. With nearly 19 foreign universities, mostly from the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia, either already operational or set to start their sessions in Fall this year or in 2027, a brand-new set of higher education options has opened up for Indian students.These institutions are ranked among the top 500 globally and include the Illinois Institute of Technology (US), the University of Liverpool, the University of Southampton, Victoria University, and The University of Western Australia (Australia), among others. Most of their Indian campuses are, as expected, in metros like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, and GIFT City in Gujarat.A degree from a foreign university without leaving India may seem to combine the best of both worlds, but will it deliver the low-cost, highquality education people are looking for? More importantly, will a foreign degree in India offer the return on investment that justifies the higher fees compared to some of the Indian universities? Though the enrolment process has already begun at several of these universities, weigh the pros and cons before making a decision.Why the influx now?The unprecedented influx of foreign universities in the past two years is due to a combination of domestic policy changes and global upheavals, with the defining push clearly coming from vested commercial interests.Indian market: The biggest reason is that India is not only among the world’s largest higher education markets, with nearly 180 million people between the ages of 18 and 24, but also that Indian students represent the largest global cohort. “With over 13.35 lakh students choosing to study abroad in 2024, it represents an opportunity global universities can no longer ignore. Setting up campuses here is the natural next step,” says Tripti Maheshwari, Co-Founder, Student Circus.“Universities are simply following the demand rather than waiting for it to come to them,” counters Sandeep Parekh, Managing Partner, Finsec Law Advisors. “For years, a large number of Indians have gone abroad to study, and the universities have come to depend on that fee income,” he says. However, over the past two years, this number has dropped sharply, especially to favoured destinations such as Canada, the United States, the UK, and Australia. This is because of tighter visa policies, shorter post-study periods, higher visa and tuition fees, and rising cost of living due to the depreciating rupee. “Foreign universities have a strong commercial reason to set up campuses where the students already are,” explains Parekh, who is also a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.Policy change: The second reason is India’s conscious bid to build India into a global education hub, retain talent, and reduce the foreign exchange that leaves the country for education. In 2020, a policy shift altered the market, from one where foreign institutions could only collaborate with Indian partners into one where they could set up and operate their own campuses. The National Education Policy 2020 allowed foreign universities ranked among the top 500 globally to establish campuses in India. The next turning point came with the University Grants Commission (UGC) issuing the UGC (Setting Up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023.These regulations created a formal route for foreign universities to enter India, and have been supported by the GIFT City framework. “The regulations have come at a time of tightening visa regimes in the West, a young population hungry for global credentials, a deepening industry base, and being physically present in India simply makes more academic and commercial sense,” says Arindam Banerjee, Professor, Finance & Accounting, and Director, Master of Applied Finance and Wealth Management, SP Jain School of Global Management.“Besides, the regulations are generous to the foreign institutions, allowing them to decide fees without a government cap, recruit and pay faculty on their own terms, and repatriate the surplus, subject to our foreign exchange laws. This commercial freedom, which our own institutions don’t enjoy, is itself an attraction,” says Parekh.Foreign university campuses operational in India