India is home to about 367 million youth between the ages of 15 and 29, the largest youth population in the world. This also paves the way for the country’s growing education sector, which caters to the needs of about 40 million students.
While a large number of students head to universities abroad, others are left to face an admission and interview system that only a smaller number are able to qualify for. According to Aritra Ghoshal of OneStep Global, which helps foreign universities enter the Indian market, “Eleven million students complete 12th grade.” [final school year in India] Every year, approximately 1.5 to 1.7 million fall into the top academic category.
Top-level institutions in India accept only about 200,000 of them annually.”The rest are being targeted by nine British universities that are setting up branches in India following announcements in 2025 during Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to the country. These universities include the University of York, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Bristol, the University of Liverpool, Queen’s University Belfast, and Coventry University.
The University of Southampton has already opened a campus in Delhi and, along with York University in Mumbai, is focusing on business, management and engineering programmes.
According to British government figures, India has 40 million university students and will need at least 70 million places in the decade to 2035. This provides an additional market opportunity of between 25 million and 30 million places for British universities. “From an affordability point of view, an estimated four to five million students could realistically consider degree programs priced in excess of £10,000 a year,” Ghosal said.This includes the aspirational upper middle class rather than the larger mass market, yet it provides a gap large enough for British universities to exploit. It was in 2020 when India’s National Education Policy announced that foreign universities would be allowed into the country and rules for the same were notified in 2023, creating a legal path for these institutions to set up shop.
According to Lindsay Odis, dean of York University, which has its campus in Powai, Mumbai, fees will be about 50% lower than the cost of studying at the university’s UK campus.
While fees will still be more expensive than private universities, there is a “quality justification” for the premium, he said, adding that universities like York follow global standards and focus on demand for employable skills alongside industry partnerships. But will all this be enough to inspire Indian students to give up traveling abroad and opt for courses at these universities instead? For many years, generations of Indians have saved money and taken out loans so that they can study at foreign universities and increase their job opportunities. In a conversation with the BBC, Ankita Kejriwal, whose son Vivan hopes to study finance and economics in the US next year, said that most of his friends and cousins choose to travel abroad primarily for exposure to international work. While a British degree offered by India may not be an alternative for these students, stricter immigration policies, like those in the US, could certainly crush the will to move and inspire them to enroll in institutions back home. “For those looking for brand value with lower financial and visa exposure, this could be an effective alternative,” Ghosal said. However, enrollment is expected to be in the hundreds in the early years.
Growth will typically occur over five to seven years once graduate results become visible and employer acceptance of these students stabilizes as enrollment decisions become increasingly results-based in India, according to Ghassal.Furthermore, these universities are expected to maintain UK academic standards while operating at Indian price points, making implementation of programs and infrastructure more difficult. However, if these universities succeed, they can expect revenues in the billions, considering that Indian students spent $5.3 billion on studying at British universities abroad in 2024.