AN ELITIST AND OPPORTUNIST’S EXCLUSIONARY EDUCATION

Challenges and Concerns over the Entry of Overseas Education Institutions in India

Introduction: The Promise and the Paradox

India’s higher education sector is one of the largest in the world, with over 1,100 universities and more than 45,000 colleges serving millions of students across urban and rural landscapes. It is vast, diverse, and ambitious, reflecting the aspirations of a young nation where education is not merely a stepping stone to employment but also a pathway to social mobility and national development. Against this backdrop, the Government of India’s decision to allow overseas universities to establish campuses in India is being hailed by some as a “progressive” and “visionary” move. However, beneath the rhetoric of globalisation and world-class education lies a series of concerns that cannot be ignored.

This move, if implemented uncritically, risks creating an elitist and exclusionary education model that benefits only the wealthy, marginalises the poor, and drains India’s intellectual and financial resources. The promise of global institutions in India appears enticing, but the reality may be one of increased inequality, diminished autonomy, and further erosion of the inclusivity that higher education in India has long aspired to achieve.

Entry of Foreign Universities: Status, Networks, and Global Aspirations

Every year, between eight to ten lakh Indian students leave the country to pursue education abroad. Their motivations extend far beyond the classroom. For many, it is the lure of global exposure: experiencing life in another culture, building international networks, and accessing professional markets with higher wages and better job security. For others, foreign education is a stepping stone to immigration opportunities, offering the possibility of permanent residency or citizenship in developed nations.

Thus, while foreign campuses in India may replicate some academic curricula, they cannot reproduce the broader package that motivates Indian students to go abroad. Studying in an Indian city at an American or European university outpost will not offer the same cultural immersion, professional environment, or immigration prospects. Instead, these campuses will likely serve a narrow demographic: the Indian elite who can afford high fees but prefer to stay closer to home. This creates a system where education becomes less about knowledge and more about status signaling, further dividing students along lines of class and wealth.

The Shiny Promise of Globalized Education

India’s education headlines are full of opportunity and optimism. Prestigious institutions announce new programmes—BIMTECH’s Postgraduate Diploma in Management, IIT Jodhpur’s M.Tech in Sustainable Energy, IIITDM Kurnool’s Ph.D. in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Globally, scholarships such as Canada’s Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Australia’s Destination Australia Scholarship, and Ireland’s International Education Scholarships entice Indian students toward international platforms of learning. The steady rollout of GATE 2026 signals the government’s projection of India as a research powerhouse.

At first glance, this paints a picture of a vibrant knowledge ecosystem: world-class research, global scholarships, international collaborations, and a government eager to rebrand India as an “education hub.” But beneath the glossy headlines lies a disturbing truth. These opportunities are not designed for all Indians—they are structured for the privileged few. The rural poor, Dalit, Adivasi, and minority students—the real backbone of India’s demographic—find themselves excluded, marginalized, and silenced.

 The Economics of Exclusion: Who Can Afford Foreign Campuses?

 India’s embrace of foreign universities is framed as progress, yet it risks creating deeper inequality. High costs, exclusionary politics, and profit repatriation threaten to erode public education, turning learning into a privilege for the few rather than a right for all.

Foreign Universities and the Two-Tier Trap: Foreign universities are unlikely to align with India’s cost-sensitive education system. Most global institutions operate on high-cost models, charging tuition far beyond what Indian public universities require. For example, while an engineering degree at a government college can cost under ₹1 lakh annually, a foreign campus may demand ten to twenty times more. Such disparities will restrict access largely to affluent families, excluding middle-class and marginalized students. The result is predictable: a stratified system where wealthy students attend foreign-branded institutions while the poor remain confined to underfunded public universities. Instead of narrowing inequity, overseas institutions will intensify it, reinforcing higher education as an elite privilege rather than a universal right.

The Politics of Exclusion and Resource Drain: The embrace of foreign universities is less reform than political strategy, reflecting the Modi government’s larger agenda of privatization and corporatization. For years, private lobbies have pushed for policies that convert education into a multi-billion-dollar market. Glossy rhetoric about “world-class campuses” masks the deliberate weakening of public institutions through closures, underfunding, and neglect. In this model, education becomes an investment for those who can pay, not a constitutional right. Poor students from rural and tribal belts are invisible casualties of this exclusionary framework.

Equally troubling is the financial design: while Indian universities reinvest in research, faculty, and infrastructure, foreign campuses will likely repatriate profits to their home countries. Tuition paid by Indian students will fuel foreign economies, creating a steady outflow of resources. This financial drain echoes the intellectual brain drain already afflicting India. Instead of building capacity within, India risks becoming a profitable marketplace for global universities—serving their interests more than its own.

Displacement of Indian Institutions: Branding and Competition

India’s higher education sector is already diverse, with elite institutions like IITs, IIMs, and AIIMS standing alongside smaller state universities and rural colleges. The entry of foreign universities risks destabilising this balance. With their global brand power and prestige, foreign institutions could easily attract the best students and faculty, leaving smaller and lesser-known Indian universities struggling to stay relevant.

Such displacement would create a concentration of talent in expensive foreign campuses, further hollowing out India’s own institutions. This could lead to long-term damage: a system where Indian universities are perceived as “second-class” compared to their foreign counterparts, even within our own borders.

The Myth of Quality: Will Foreign Campuses Deliver?

Proponents argue that foreign universities will raise academic standards and foster healthy competition. However, India already has successful international collaborations within IITs, IIMs, and other premier institutions. Joint degree programmes, exchange initiatives, and global research projects are already underway. The entry of standalone foreign campuses offers no guarantee of better quality; it may simply replicate existing curricula at inflated costs.

Moreover, the global prestige of these universities often comes from their context—decades of research investment, strong economies, and robust ecosystems. Transplanting them into India does not automatically translate into the same outcomes. Without cultural immersion or global mobility benefits, their appeal is primarily symbolic.

Social Inequality and Educational Elitism: Who Gets Left Behind?

At its core, the biggest challenge of foreign universities in India is their potential to institutionalise inequality. Education is not only a tool for personal growth but also a means of bridging social divides. The National Education Policy (NEP 2020) aspires to inclusivity and equitable access, but the entry of high-cost, elitist campuses risks undermining this vision.

Poor and marginalized students, especially those from rural areas, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and other disadvantaged groups, will find themselves further excluded. Even if scholarships are introduced, they are unlikely to match the scale of need. The system risks creating an ‘educational caste system’ where foreign-branded degrees become a ticket to elite jobs, while ordinary degrees push students into a saturated, competitive job market with fewer opportunities.

Therefore, NEP 2020 is geared to promote not inclusivity but exclusive elitism. This  NEP policy was marketed as a transformative roadmap for equitable access and lifelong learning. Its proponents hailed it as revolutionary: flexible curricula, internationalization of higher education, and the much-publicized “Multiple Entry Exit System.” Yet, the devil lies in the details. While NEP 2020 promotes tie-ups with foreign universities and explicitly opens the door for them to set up campuses in India, it remains ominously silent on how poor students—already struggling with rising fees, inadequate facilities, and shrinking scholarships—are to benefit.

By pitching foreign university entry as a badge of modernization, the Modi government signals that global branding matters more than grassroots equality. In reality, foreign campuses in India are unlikely to provide affordable or accessible education. They will charge tuition fees far higher than public institutions, operating in English and catering to urban elites. For the vast majority of Indian students, the promise of a “global classroom” will remain a mirage.

The Cultural Dimension: Whose Knowledge Counts?

Education is not just about skills; it is also about values, culture, and social responsibility. Foreign campuses, driven by profit and global branding, may prioritise marketable courses over socially relevant ones. Subjects critical to India—such as rural development, public health, or indigenous knowledge systems—may be sidelined in favour of high-demand global disciplines like business, technology, or finance. These risks producing graduates who are well-trained for global markets but disconnected from India’s socio-cultural realities. In a country still grappling with poverty, inequality, and ecological crises, education cannot be divorced from context. An imported model may alienate students from their own society, weakening the role of education as a force for nation-building.

Privatization Disguised as Reform

The Modi government’s education reforms, marketed as “internationalization” and “flexibility,” are in reality a push towards privatization and a retreat from the state’s responsibility. The NEP, hailed as visionary, offers little for inclusivity. Instead, it paves the way for commercialization, with no serious provisions to strengthen government schools, expand public funding for higher education, or address the systemic exclusion of Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, and the poor.

A central feature of NEP 2020 is the opening of India to foreign universities—long demanded by global corporations and domestic private lobbies. These institutions will primarily serve the wealthy, further marginalizing disadvantaged students. Their brand appeal will weaken smaller public colleges, already struggling with funds and faculty shortages, deepening inequity rather than bridging it. Far from a leap forward, this shift drains resources and undermines the constitutional promise of education for all.

Simultaneously, BJP-ruled states are closing thousands of government schools under the pretext of “mergers” and “rationalization.” This forces children from marginalized communities to travel long distances or abandon schooling altogether, eroding the right to free and compulsory education guaranteed under Article 21A. These closures reflect a deliberate weakening of public education, leaving space for private players, including the Sangh’s Vidya Bharati schools. Alongside privatization, NEP enables ideological control through “Indian values,” legitimizing saffronized curricula that rewrite history and narrow pluralism.

While the government projects India as a “knowledge hub” through flashy international tie-ups and scholarships for a select few, the reality for most students is stark: soaring fees, shrinking fellowships, and the expansion of self-financing colleges. Student protests across campuses—from JNU to Allahabad University—signal resistance to this commodification. When education is transformed from a right into a privilege, democracy itself is eroded, leaving the majority excluded from the nation’s future.

Impact of School Closures on Higher Education: The Silent Crisis

While the government trumpets global summits and scholarships abroad, it is quietly shutting down the foundational tier of education at home. Across BJP-ruled states, thousands of government schools have been merged. For rural Dalit, tribal, and minority children, these schools were lifelines—  now inaccessible due to distance. Many students, therefore, withdraw from  education. This so-called “rationalization” is nothing less than abandonment. It violates the constitutional guarantee of free and equitable education. Instead of investing in more teachers, libraries, and laboratories for government schools, the state has chosen to dismantle them, creating a parallel system: one for the privileged, another for the marginalized.

Spectacle over Substance

Even as government schools are shuttered, elite institutions bask in global applause. IISc Bengaluru’s breakthroughs in AI-driven protein design and Indian students’ victories at competitions like iGEM and Microsoft’s Imagine Cup are held up as evidence of India’s “knowledge superpower” status. But who really benefits? These achievements emerge from a narrow band of well-funded, well-networked students. For millions who lack even electricity, let alone laboratories, such triumphs are stories from another planet.

Cultural and academic events like the Indo-French Education Summit or the International Student Film Festival in Hyderabad showcase creativity and collaboration. Yet without meaningful investment in public education, they risk becoming elite spectacles—stage sets of privilege masquerading as progress.

Alternatives to Foreign Campuses: Building an Inclusive Model

India does not need foreign universities to deliver quality education. It needs political will to strengthen its own institutions. If the goal is to improve India’s higher education ecosystem, there are better, more inclusive alternatives than inviting foreign universities. A truly inclusive vision requires:

1.      Strengthening Indian Universities: The foremost priority must be to increase funding for public universities, expand infrastructure, and invest in faculty development. Indian institutions can be world-class if given the resources.

Robust Public Investment:  Expanding scholarships, upgrading state universities, and ensuring equitable distribution of resources across rural and urban India.

Grassroots Infrastructure: Investing in government schools, especially in marginalized areas, with teachers, libraries, labs, and safe transport.

2.      Encouraging Global Collaborations, not Colonies: Encouraging faculty exchanges, joint research, and virtual learning platforms without ceding sovereignty to foreign campuses. Instead of standalone campuses, joint research projects, faculty exchange programmes, and integrated curricula with global universities can bring international exposure without high costs.

3.      Technology and Virtual Learning: Online lectures, international webinars, and virtual exchange programmes can connect Indian students with global faculty, democratising access to world-class education.

4.      Scholarships and Mobility Support: Expanding government scholarships for study abroad can allow talented but underprivileged students to access international opportunities without creating domestic exclusion.

5.      Equity at the Core: Centering policy on Dalit, Adivasi, tribal, and minority students, not just the urban elite.

6.      Localised Research and Innovation: Strengthening research ecosystems in Indian universities can help address India’s unique challenges—climate resilience, rural healthcare, renewable energy—while producing knowledge relevant to our society.

7.      Strengthening Regional Languages: Enabling learning in mother tongues to expand access and bridge divides.

Conclusion: Toward Equality – Education as a Right, not a Marketplace

 

India’s education system stands at a critical turning point. One vision upholds education as a public good, rooted in equity, justice, and empowerment. The other, dangerously enticing, reduces it to a commodity—privatized, globalized, and reserved for the privileged. The Modi government, by championing foreign universities and private lobbies under the guise of “progress,” has embraced the latter. Behind the gloss of international tie-ups lies a harsher reality: collapsing government schools, teacher shortages, and millions of poor and marginalized children left behind. When education becomes a passport only for the wealthy, India risks dividing itself into two nations—one globalized and privileged, the other silenced and abandoned.

Though NEP 2020 is presented as reform, its underlying push for privatization betrays the democratic promise of education for all. Instead of investing in public schools, strengthening regional universities, and expanding scholarships, the government has chosen optics over substance and corporate branding over grassroots empowerment. The entry of overseas universities may be packaged as progress, but it threatens to deepen inequality. Education is not a marketplace but a right, a responsibility, and the soul of India’s constitutional vision. Unless citizens demand another path, NEP will be remembered not as reform, but as betrayal.