US still the most preferred destination for Indian students

The United States of America continues to be the most preferred destination for Indian students, revealed data provided by the Indian government.

As many as 752,725 students from India are currently studying abroad, India's minister of state for external affairs Gen. (Retd) VK Singh said. Indian students are currently enrolled in universities in 90 countries and close to 211,703 are currently in the US.

However, according to a Business Standard report, the flow of Indian students to the US for academic year 2018-19 saw a dip of 30 per cent and this could be due to visa regulations.

“There are two major factors," Arun Jagannathan of CrackVerbal, a test preparation and admissions consultancy firm told the publication. "First, the economy itself and the other is visa regulations. Therefore, we are seeing a 30 per cent shift towards Canada from the US. Though Canada's permanent residency (PR) process is easier, the economy is not as large as the US. Yet, students are opting for the North American country, along with other destinations," said Jagannathan.

Rising education cost is another factor that has resulted in decreasing number of applications to US colleges.

“A couple of years ago, in the North American market, if 100 students were applying from India, 80-90 would apply only to the US and the rest would apply to Canada as well. The proportion has changed to 50-60 applying only to the US and another 40-30 applying for both Canada and the US; the rest apply only to Canada,” said Jagannathan.

Meanwhile, Canada has 124,000 Indian students followed by Australia, which attracted 87,115 Indian students.

Other major destinations preferred by Indian students include Saudi Arabia (70,800 students) and the United Arab Emirates (50,000 students). About 30,000 students went to New Zealand, while United Kingdom had 16,550 Indians studying there in 2016-2017.

The countries with the lowest number of Indian students are Uganda and Serbia, with just one student each.