Subscribe Now! Get features like
Universities are not fast food chains: Global campuses must do more than just replicating recipes to succeed in India
Foreign universities in India promise to enhance higher education but face challenges replicating the transformative experiences of their home campuses.
The arrival of foreign universities in India Southampton in Gurgaon, Liverpool in Bengaluru, Deakin and Wollongong in Gujarat’s GIFT City, and more on the way has been hailed as a turning point for our higher education system. Announcements have been accompanied by headlines that talk of brain drain finally ending, of India becoming a global education hub, and of students gaining “world-class” learning at home. But in all the excitement, we must ask: what actually makes an international learning experience good? And more importantly, can that experience really be replicated outside its original ecosystem or is higher education being treated like fast food, something that can be franchised and served the same way everywhere?
The first and most important truth is that the international learning experience has never been defined by a campus logo alone. What draws students to the United States, the UK, or Australia is not just the curriculum and course which, in today’s world, can easily be copied, but the surrounding ecosystem. It is the faculty who bring global research networks into the classroom. It is the peer group drawn from fifty or more countries, who push perspectives beyond national boundaries. It is the internship in a Boston biotech lab, the debate at the Oxford Union, or the immersion in a Melbourne start-up hub that builds confidence, adaptability, and critical thinking.
HT Interview: Careers in avionics are taking off - here’s what you should know
These are the intangibles that make education transformational and they cannot be mass-produced like identical burgers across outlets. The natural question then is: can these elements be transplanted into Gurgaon, GIFT City, EduCity or Bengaluru? History offers us lessons that are sobering. Over the past two decades, the world has seen both successes and failures in international branch campuses. According to the Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT) at SUNY Albany, there are over 333 international branch campuses (IBCs) worldwide today. Some, like NYU Abu Dhabi, are celebrated for delivering academic quality on par with the home institution, attracting students from more than 120 countries. Others, like Michigan State’s Dubai campus or Monash South Africa, struggled with enrollment and financial sustainability, eventually shutting down or being sold. The pattern is clear: a branch campus can replicate the curriculum, but replicating the culture, networks, and global immersion is far more complex because education is not a recipe you can lift from one kitchen and serve in another without change.
Even within India, we already know that brand parity does not guarantee experience parity. Every IIT carries the same three letters in its name, and every IIM the same, but the reality of studying at IIT Bombay or IIM Ahmedabad is not comparable with that of their newer cousins. Faculty depth, peer selectivity, research output, alumni networks, and the surrounding ecosystem combine to make some campuses far more transformative than others. The brand may be consistent, but the student outcomes and the “feel” of the institution are not. Foreign universities must therefore internalise this lesson: bringing a brand to India is not the same as recreating the full experience.
And this brings us to the uncomfortable question of cost for if the experience is uneven, then what exactly are students and families being asked to pay for? Southampton’s Gurgaon campus is reported to charge ₹10–12 lakh a year, roughly two-thirds of its UK tuition. Deakin and Wollongong programs at GIFT City cost ₹15–17 lakh for master’s degrees. These numbers are not wildly different from what leading Indian private universities such as Ashoka, Krea and OP Jindal already charge. Typically in the range of ₹8–12 lakh annually. The real issue, then, is not whether foreign campuses are marginally more expensive, but whether they can justify charging at the very top of this bracket simply for the cachet of being “foreign.” If the quality of faculty, diversity of peers, and global immersion are not significantly better, the premium risks being little more than branding.
The financial implications are serious. According to the Ministry of External Affairs India sent over 1.8 million Indian students abroad in 2025 and the RBI estimates outward remittances for education at ₹29,000 crore in 2024. Much of this is financed by loans, but those loans are often balanced by access to international job markets, higher wage levels, and the possibility of residency abroad. A graduate from a US or UK campus has the potential to earn in dollars or pounds, making the debt, though heavy, more serviceable.
India must treat ‘Right to Compute’ as essential as books and pencils, says Intel India region VP and MD
The risk with foreign campuses in India is different. If families take on comparable levels of debt to fund degrees priced at ₹10–17 lakh a year, but the graduate is still competing only in the Indian job market, the return may not justify the cost. India’s education loan book has already crossed ₹1 lakh crore, with defaults disproportionately high among students from expensive private institutions whose job outcomes have not matched their tuition bills. If foreign campuses set off an upward spiral in pricing, without delivering superior employability, India could see the outlines of the same student debt problem that has ballooned to $1.8 trillion in the United States, a crisis born of rising fees outpacing the value of degrees.
At a broader systemic level, there is another concern. Once foreign universities establish themselves at the ₹10–15 lakh range, Indian private universities are likely to follow suit, citing “market standards.” Instead of improving affordability, the presence of global brands could normalise higher prices across the board, deepening inequality in access. And this comes at a time when India’s real higher education challenge is not the absence of elite opportunities for the wealthy, but the lack of affordable, subsidised, quality options for millions of students who will never be able to consider either the UK or a ₹15 lakh campus in India. In other words, foreign universities may add shine at the top but leave the foundation unattended.
That said, there is space for optimism if these institutions focus on substance rather than brand. If they bring in global faculty, allow meaningful credit transfer across campuses, enable international internships, and create genuine diversity in classrooms, they could raise benchmarks for Indian higher education.
WACE in India: Western Australian curriculum offers affordable global education
Foreign universities coming to India is a historic development. The future will belong to those campuses that move beyond replication and resist the temptation to turn higher education into fast food. What India needs is not franchises of learning, but institutions that can recreate the true spirit of global education, accessible, diverse, and connected.
(Author Aman Singh is Co-Founder, GradRight. Views expressed are personal.)
