Zerodha CEO advises Indian students to rethink their plan to study abroad

With rising interest rates in the west and mass firing in high-paid tech jobs, one must reconsider the new universities set up in India, which have improved tremendously, said Zerodha's Nithin Kamath

Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nikhil Kamath on Wednesday urged students in India who are going abroad for higher education to reconsider the universities established in the country because interest rates are on the rise in the West, and due to the ongoing mass layoffs in the tech sector.

"With rising interest rates in the west & mass firing in high-paid tech jobs, one must reconsider the new universities set up in India, which have improved tremendously." tweeted Kamath.

Explaining further, Kamath said, "It's one thing to go abroad to study and network, another to be saddled with crazy debt for life at 7-8 per cent."

In his tweet, Kamath shared a chart curated by InvestyWise, which cited data from the Ministry of Education (MoE) and showed around 44.87 per cent increase since 2018 in Indian students visiting abroad to study.

According to InvestyWise, over 750,000 Indian students studied abroad in the year 2022. The data showed that the United States emerged as the most popular destination among Indian students in 2022 with an outflow of 190,512 students, followed by its neighbour, Canada (185,955 students). The United Kingdom (132,709 students) and Australia (59,044 students), too, emerged as popular destinations. 

According to the detailed information shared by Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar, in a written response to a question by JD(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh, more than 3,000,000 Indians went abroad for higher education during 2017-2022. There was also a significant rise in 2019 as well, with 586,000 candidates leaving the country for higher education, according to the data. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of Indian nationals in foreign varsities witnessed a severe dip in its record as only 259,000 students registered for higher studies. The numbers saw a slight increase in 2021 with 444,000 registrations.