Premium

Canada, US, UK: Top picks for Indian students heading abroad – NITI Aayog

In 2024, Canada was the top international higher education destination with a total of 4,27,000 Indian students visiting the country. This was followed by the USA with 3,37,630 Indian students, the United Kingdom with 1,85,000, Australia (1,22,202), and Germany (42,997), the report said.

2 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Dec 25, 2025 09:10 AM IST

As per the report, Canada, the US, UK and Australia host 8.5 lakh Indian students who spent Rs 2.9 lakh crore on higher education in 2023-2024 (representative image/ Express photo by Pradeep Kochrekar)

Canada, the USA, the United Kingdom, and Australia continue to draw Indian students while Germany has emerged as the top international higher education destinations, according to a report released by NITI Aayog on Monday.

In 2024, Canada was the top international higher education destination with a total of 4,27,000 Indian students visiting the country. This was followed by the USA with 3,37,630 Indian students, the United Kingdom with 1,85,000, Australia (1,22,202), and Germany (42,997), the report said.

It further said that India is the world’s largest source country of international students with over 13.35 lakh students studying overseas in 2024. Also, the country has the largest higher education age cohort (18-23 years) in the world, 15.5 crore.

“In 2024, for every 1 international student coming to India, 28 Indian students went abroad, underscoring a significant brain drain for the country,” it said.

About the inflow of foreign students in India, the report titled ‘Internationalisation of Higher Education in India’ presented the data of 2021-22.

Story continues below this ad

Nepal, Afghanistan, the USA, Bangladesh and the UAE were the top source countries of international students in India in 2021-22, it said.

As per the report, Canada, the US, UK and Australia host 8.5 lakh Indian students who spent Rs 2.9 lakh crore on higher education in 2023-2024.

At the same time, Latvia has the highest 17.4 per cent of Indian students, followed by Ireland hosting 15.3 per cent, and Germany, 10.1 per cent.

Also Read | Which foreign countries, Indian students prefer for study abroad? MEA data reveals

Story continues below this ad

The report, citing numbers recorded in 2020, said that among states, Andhra Pradesh was the top source with 35,614 students going overseas, followed by Punjab, which sent 33,412, and Maharashtra 29,079 students for higher education.

It noted a surge in outward remittances from Rs 975 crore to Rs 29,000 crore during 2014–24 under the RBI’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme for Indian students studying abroad.