Thursday, December 5, 2013

Growing and shifting enrollment of students from India

A recent British Council Report indicates continuing growth as well as shifts among students from India studying around the world.  The combination of perceived high costs of some institutions coupled with improving opportunity to study in India contributed to the changes.  The bottom line is that the number of Indian students going on for university work more than tripled from 2000-01 to 2011-12 and graduate enrollment increased 47% in one year from 2009-10 to 2010-11.

This report is consistent with other predictions that, next to Chinese students, Indian students are the world's fastest growing market.  The longer-term prediction is that Indian students will eventually out-number Chinese.  The question is, where and how will these students be served?  There are those institutions who primarily look at this from an economic point of view but, more importantly in my eyes, what about the opportunity to build lasting ties across cultures?