By Mr. Sanjay Laul, Founder at MSM Aventra
Seventeen foreign universities have received formal approval to open degree-granting campuses in India. Three years ago, that number was zero. This is not a minor policy update. It is a fundamental repositioning of where global higher education happens.
The relationship between India and the leading colleges in the globe has been one-sided for many years. Students from India have gone overseas in numbers while colleges wait for them. The thought of a top 100 institution creating a campus in Bengaluru or Mumbai in order to deliver degrees to students would have seemed more like a novel idea rather than a well thought out plan to the people until a few years ago. have sounded, until very recently, like a minor experiment rather than a serious strategy.
That has changed completely. And the reasons behind it say as much about the state of global higher education as they do about India itself.
The regulation that opened the door
A specific policy decision led to this change. The UGC in India allowed foreign universities which rank among the top 500 globally, overall or by subject, to set up their campuses in India as stated in its new 2023 policy. Under the new regulations of the UGC, however, foreign universities are allowed to set up their campuses fully owned by them in India instead of being involved in local college partnerships.
The University of Southampton was the first to take action and opened its campus in Gurugram in August 2025. Deakin University and the University of Wollongong were already present in GIFT City in Gujarat via a different, flexible regulatory structure. After that, the speed of establishing universities in India picked up considerably. The University of Liverpool laid the foundations for its campus in Bengaluru in December 2025. UNSW Sydney will take its place at Embassy Manyata in August 2026. University of York is going to open its campus in Mumbai in September of the same year. The Illinois Institute of Technology is preparing to become the first American university that will have an independent degree-granting campus in India.
As of April 2026, seventeen universities have received UGC or IFSCA approval. Several are already teaching students. Most of the rest are moving through construction and accreditation on a timeline measured in months, not years.
Why the universities are moving first
The conventional explanation is that these universities are simply chasing India’s scale. India has the largest population of university-age students in the world and, although outbound figures are still significant, they seem to be showing signs of plateauing. Indian outbound enrolments reached a peak of 1.33 million in 2024 before easing somewhat to 1.25 million the following year, marking the first decline in three years. For an institution, which has spent the last ten years implementing its strategies for recruitment of students from India, this shift in the trend is quite alarming.
But scale alone does not explain the timing. What has changed just as significantly is the environment students would otherwise be recruited into. In the last two years, there has been significant tightening in visa processing in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia. The time students can work after finishing their degrees has been reduced. The cost has increased. For universities wanting to become bigger and better at attracting international students, hoping students maneuver their way through ever more likely visa chaos is not a viable growth plan. Delivering the degree to the student altogether removes dependence on this system.
There is also a straightforward commercial logic.You can get a diploma from an Indian campus at a significantly lesser amount than you would have to pay for the same one abroad. You would need to pay approximately 40% to 60% less, including tuition fees, visa costs, flights, and living expenses worldwide. The ability to obtain a degree at a reasonable price makes it possible for a bigger range of Indian families to receive an education that they could never have afforded through a campus in the UK or Australia since they are not required to compromise their brand.
What this means in practice
The degree awarded is not a local equivalent or a joint qualification. A graduate of Deakin University’s GIFT City campus receives a Deakin University degree. A graduate of Southampton’s Gurugram campus receives a University of Southampton degree, with academic content aligned to the UK campus and undergraduate and postgraduate programmes matching UK degree lengths.
For students, the practical calculation has shifted meaningfully. The traditional trade-off between studying abroad and studying at home, prestige and global exposure against cost and proximity, is no longer as absolute as it once was. A student in Bengaluru can now access a genuine UNSW Sydney education without the visa uncertainty, the currency exposure, or the cost of relocating a family’s finances halfway around the world.
The honest caveat is that these campuses are still young. Historical precedent from China, where branch campuses have operated for over two decades, shows most mature international campuses stabilising at four to six thousand students rather than the tens of thousands a flagship home campus might host. Placement networks, campus culture, and the depth of the on-the-ground experience are all still being built. A seventeen-campus ecosystem is a meaningful start. It is not yet a full replacement for what studying abroad offers.
A structural shift, not a passing trend
What makes this moment different from previous attempts at internationalising Indian higher education is the alignment of interests behind it. The Indian government wants to keep talent and tuition spending inside the country under its National Education Policy ambitions. Universities want durable, visa-independent access to one of the world’s largest student markets. And students want the credential without the compounding financial and immigration risk that studying abroad now carries.
None of those pressures are temporary. The universities expanding into India are not testing a market. They are repositioning for one that is not returning to how it worked a decade ago.