Indian families have spent a staggering ₹1.76 lakh crore over the past decade to fund higher education abroad, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data obtained through an RTI query. To put this in perspective, the sum could have financed the construction of around 62 new IITs.

In 2023–24 alone, students remitted nearly ₹29,000 crore overseas—almost unchanged from the previous year. A decade earlier, the figure was just ₹2,429 crore, marking an extraordinary 1,200 percent surge in ten years.

Paradoxically, while the outflow of funds has remained high, the number of students heading overseas fell by 15 percent in 2024 compared to 2023, largely due to stricter visa rules in the US, UK and Canada. Nevertheless, 7.59 lakh students went abroad last year—well above pre-pandemic levels. For comparison, only about 5.9 lakh students pursued overseas education in 2019.

The contrast with India’s own higher education funding is stark. The Union government’s allocation for higher education in 2025–26 is ₹50,078 crore—barely double what families spent on foreign education in a single year. The ten-year outflow alone exceeds three times the government’s entire higher education budget.

The figures highlight the enduring demand for overseas degrees and raise pressing questions about India’s ability to expand domestic higher education capacity and quality to stem this costly brain drain.

Inputs from News Insider 24×7

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