Despite India being the world’s largest source of international students, outbound mobility remains concentrated in a narrow corridor of states. New data shows that global opportunities reward readiness and ecosystem strength more than population or aspiration.
India sends hundreds of thousands of students abroad each year, but the flow is far from evenly spread. Data across multiple years shows that Andhra Pradesh consistently leads outbound mobility, with Punjab and Maharashtra close behind, while states with far larger populations barely register.
This is not a demand problem. It is an infrastructure gap. High-sending states share four advantages: early exposure to professional degrees, dense private higher-education and counselling networks, social acceptance of education loans, and long-standing migration links that reduce perceived risk.
Even major global shocks did not change this pattern. Between 2016 and 2020, destination preferences shifted sharply from the US to Canada, the UK and Germany, but the states sending students largely stayed the same. Global policy changes reshuffled where students went, not who could go.
The result is a structural inequality in access to global education. International exposure increasingly depends on geography rather than merit alone. Until information access, credit availability and career-aligned pathways expand beyond this corridor, India’s global education story will remain concentrated, not national.
[Source: Times of India]
