For decades, India’s best students left for degrees. Now, for the first time, degrees are coming to them.
Under UGC regulations introduced in 2023, 17 foreign universities have received approval to establish campuses in India, including three already operational in Mumbai, the NCR region, Chennai, and Bengaluru. Universities ranked within the world’s top 500 are eligible to apply, and most of the approved institutions so far are from the United Kingdom, with QS World University Rankings 2026 positions ranging from 51 to 558. The University of Bristol has opened in Mumbai, the University of Liverpool in Bengaluru, and the University of Southampton in Gurgaon, each starting small and scaling toward campuses of several thousand students within the decade.
The pitch is straightforward: the same degree, the same curriculum, a fraction of the cost, and none of the visa uncertainty of studying abroad. Tuition at these campuses runs at roughly half of what the same degree would cost in the UK, while popular disciplines include business management, computer science, data science, and artificial intelligence, precisely the fields Indian employers say they’re struggling to hire for.
Why this matters for this issue
This is not a side story to the leadership conversation running through these pages. It is arguably its next chapter. For years, Indian principals have competed against each other for the best students, faculty, and rankings. That competition now has new entrants, ones with global brand recognition and, in some cases, deeper pockets. A domestic institution that has spent years building research culture, industry linkages, and employability outcomes on constrained budgets will now be judged against a Liverpool or a Southampton operating on Indian soil.
For the vision-driven leaders featured in this issue, that’s not necessarily a threat. It’s a benchmark. Several of the same qualities we’ve highlighted across these profiles, industry-aligned curricula, credible research output, genuine student-outcome focus, are exactly what will determine whether Indian institutions hold their ground or lose their best applicants to a foreign name with a local campus.
The unresolved questions
Becoming a “hub” requires more than approvals and ribbon-cuttings. Foreign campuses are still required to mirror their home institution’s academic standards, and it remains to be seen whether that promise holds at scale, or whether a Mumbai campus quietly becomes a diluted version of the parent brand. There are also structural questions India hasn’t fully answered: will these campuses meaningfully collaborate with domestic institutions, or simply compete for the same top-decile students? And will the hub ambition extend research partnerships and faculty exchange to Tier 2 and Tier 3 institutions, or stay concentrated in the same four or five metro cities already named above?
The bottom line
India has the demographic scale, policy intent, and now, the early infrastructure to become a genuine global higher-education hub. Whether it becomes one, or simply a cheaper postcode for foreign degrees, will depend less on how many universities arrive, and more on how India’s own institutions respond to their arrival.
