Daybreak - Who benefits from the influx of foreign universities in India? Not students

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

In 2025, the University of Southampton became the first British university to open a campus in India. It was more than a milestone. After a single policy change, foreign universities are rushing to claim their place in India’s higher-education market. States are competing to host them, and universities are chasing new revenue abroad. Everyone seems to be winning. But beneath the glossy partnerships and big promises, what does this experiment really mean for students? And what happens when a “foreign degree” no longer means going abroad?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. In British academia, August usually feels like a boss. Campuses empty out, the lawns are quiet, professors breathe again. But for one man, this August was not quite.

Wyatt at all. Andrew Atherton, the vice president of international engagement at the University of Southampton, spent his summer not in leafy hampshire, but in the sweltering heat of Gururam, India, overseeing something historic. You see, Southampton has just opened its new Indian campus, the first British university to plant its flag on Indian soil. The approval came in January 24 and by July 2020, lectures were already underway. 18 months from paperwork to students in seats. Aiterton himself calls it a little bit of pressure. I guess that's one way to describe building a university halfway across the world.

But this isn't just about one campus. It is about a global rush, a race to claim a slice of India's $65 billion dollar higher education market, a race that began with one policy change, A single regulatory switch flipped in December 2023. Overnight, foreign universities could open campuses in India and even send their profits home. Just like that, the gates had opened.

Now, eight British universities are lining up their own outposts. The Australians even beat them to it. Everybody wants in. Because for universities, India is not just a market. It is the future of survival. But is India ready for this? Or, to be a little more provocative, are these universities coming to educate or to expand?

Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Dha Sharma, and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague, Rachel Vargis and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. The story begins as many modern gold rushes do, with a policy change. In December 2020, India's higher education regulator, the University Grants Commission, or UGC, announced that foreign universities could finally set up local campuses, not just in special zones like Gujarat's gift city, but anywhere.

And more crucially, they could repatriate their profits. That last part changed everything. Suddenly, India's enormous, underserved higher education market, $65 billion. was wide open. Universities began scouting for real estate. States started pitching land, partnerships and incentives. Maharashtra even announced an edu city in Navi Mumbai designed to host five foreign universities.

Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, they all joined this race. Because hosting a foreign university is not just an education policy move. It is bragging rights. It says, we are open for business. world-class. The timing too could not have been better or worse, depending on where you stand. You see, nearly 2 million Indian students are studying abroad. Every tuition payment, every rent-check, every living expense chips away at the rupee. In the last decade, education-related remittances from India have jumped from 2400 crores to nearly 29,000 crore rupees. At the same time, immigration

rules in the UK, Canada and US have tightened. Post-study work visas are much harder to get. Canada, in fact, rejected 80% of Indian student visas this year. So, universities are changing their models. If students can't come to you, you go to them. For students, this seems like a win. A Western degree, at half the price, without the airfare or the visa drama. But the first universities to arrive are not the elite ones.

not Oxford, not Harvard, not Cambridge. They are the middle-tier institutions, you know, the ones that are chasing growth. And they are moving fast. As one education consultant told my colleague Atul-Krishna, universities are looking at themselves more like businesses. They are looking to grow and India's demand far exceeds the supply. Speed is everything.

But substance, that might come later. More on this in the next segment. Stay tuned. The rush that we're seeing today has been years in the making. Back in 2020, India's national education policy or NEP first suggested allowing the world's top 100 universities to open campuses locally. But it took three years for the rules to arrive. And when they did, the bar quietly lowered from the top 100 to the top 500.

The hope official said was that this would pave the way for truly elite elite. institutions someday. So far though, that day has not come. The entrance are solid, but not stellar. Southampton, Bristol, York, Aberdeen, Dakin, Latrobe, universities that are known, respected, but not the world's most prestigious. India has been generous with this red carpet. Foreign universities do not have to follow many of the same rules as Indian ones. They can skip the new multiple entry, multiple exit degree system. They can. can even avoid the mandatory four-year undergraduate structure. Their only real requirement is that they offer the same degree that they offer back home.

So, an 18-month business analytics program in India can carry the same name and on paper the same value as one in Australia or the UK. But here's the catch. A university is not just lectures. It is an experience, it is clubs, campus life, culture, community, and that is hard to recreate in a rented building in Gurgaon. Southampton knows this. That is why it has partnered with Deloitte and Investec for internships and placements,

trying to prove its students will have real outcomes. But even in India, where degrees multiply, jobs don't, even the IITs saw placements drop by 10% this year. And that exposes the deeper truth. For most students, the dream of studying abroad was not just about the degree. It was also about the visa. staple to their passport. A campus in India can give you a British curriculum, but not a British work permit. And that is a paradox at the heart of this experiment. India may succeed in keeping

more rupees at home. States may gain shiny new partnerships and investor-friendly headlines, and universities may find new markets. But for students, the promise of a foreign degree might still feel incomplete without the foreign life that it once implied. Aititin, who traded the lawns of Southampton for Gurgao's glass towers, is betting that India's enthusiasm will last longer than its skepticism. He says it is a large investment, but we expect to break even in four to five years, which is a confidence statement,

but behind it, a bigger question lingers. In this race to import global education, are we really building knowledge or just a new kind of business? Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings and a full subscription offers daily, long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague, Snitha Sharma, and edited by Rajiv Sien.