Overseas Education: Why It’s Worth Considering

As a student in India there are often very clear markers of success that you strive to achieve. And more often than not that marker is getting admission into one of the few prestigious colleges and universities of India.

Supply vs Demand

As a student in India there are often very clear markers of success that you strive to achieve. And more often than not that marker is getting admission into one of the few prestigious colleges and universities of India. As an engineering student this usually means getting into one of the IITs. The aspirants for these institutes number in tens of lacs, but unfortunately there are only around 10,000 seats up for grabs. The story is no different for other disciplines – too many aspirants for too few quality seats.

So what about the other 1 million students? What is their option B?

While there are other “good to decent” options (BITs, NITs, regionally ranked colleges) for a small subset of students, at the end of the day the value of the brand and employment opportunities keep dwindling as you go further down the list.

Looking for the right thing in the wrong place

India is home to over 50,000 educational institutions but only about 7 feature in the world rankings of top 500 universities. This essentially means that you could work hard and try your best and still end up in a college which has zero global recognition. In an increasingly globalised world of employment this could make the difference in where you start from.

The next obvious question is that if India has only 7 of the top 500, which countries have the other 493 universities? The USA has the biggest piece of the pie here with around 160 of its 3500+ universities being featured in the top 500 but behind it we have countries like Australia with 22 (of 200), the UK with 40 (of 300) and Canada with 24 (of 375).The UK and Australia have double the percentage of their total universities in the top 500 as compared to the USA and Canada.

The bottom line here is that there are countries with a lot more really great universities than India which are worth considering.

Bachelor of all, master of none

Studying abroad is expensive when compared to studying in India, but the degree you get is also worth more in terms of your employability. As an Indian student in India, doing just a Bachelors’ degree is just not enough anymore. Doing a PG course in, again, one of the few prestigious universities in India or abroad has become the norm and a minimum expectation if you want to secure quality employment. This puts you in the same money hole that you tried to avoid by doing your UG degree at a cheap Indian college.

On the other hand, by doing your UG abroad at a better university to begin with allows you to not only get more opportunities right off the bat but also removes the compulsion of doing a PG course just to meet the bare minimum benchmark.

Show me the money

Higher quality education alone of course is far from being the only criteria. Other things to consider are job prospects post graduation, ease of getting post study work rights and the biggest one of all, how much is it going to cost you.

The good news is that not all countries are as strict as the US when it comes to the difficulty in getting post study work rights. Countries like Australia and the UK have very student friendly rules and give students plenty of time to look for employment. And with plentiful opportunities available it’s just a matter of time before you secure a great job.

If the first 2 points are taken care of then the third point mostly takes care of itself as the options to obtain education loans are plentiful and the higher salaries abroad ensure that paying them off is a very feasible solution.

Conclusion

The world is a lot smaller and more accessible than it used to be. Instead of focussing on the narrow spectrum of options available to you in India, you now know that there are better universities which are easier to get into and that offer better career prospects outside India.

So do your homework well and if you want to know more about these options contact us at 080 47493715 or write to us at enquiries@theworldgrad.com to speak to one of our experts today.

Author: Deepak Shukla