With rising visa and work-permit restrictions in several countries including Canada, students from India could turn to universities lin more friendlier locales like Ireland, Germany and France, says Shweta Guru, Chief Business Officer of Mumbai-based Auxilo Finserve Pvt Ltd, an NBFC focussed on education finance.
“Post Covid pandemic, the number of Indian students going abroad has seen an exponential jump. With visa and work-permit restrictions being imposed in some countries, we are foreseeing a new order where more students are likely to prefer countries like Germany, Ireland and France. We are also seeing a trend where students are preferring smaller European Union countries like Sweden and Switzerland,” said Guru during her visit to Ahmedabad, Monday.
The official who heads the overseas loans portfolio of the company feels that these new educational hotspots could develop amid countries like the US, Canada, Australia and the UK imposing curbs on visas and work-permits of overseas students.
According to data from the Bureau of Immigration tabled in the Rajya Sabha during the winter session of the Parliament that concluded in December 2024, over 8.92 lakh Indians went overseas for education during calendar year 2023. This is 19 per cent higher than the 7.5 lakh Indians who went in 2022. While 2.34 lakh went to the US for education during CY2023, 2.33 lakh more went to Canada, 1.36 lakh to the UK and 78,000 to Australia. In comparison, over 8,000 Indian students went to Ireland, 23,000 to Germany, and 7,400 to France.
Demand for biz and tech
The top courses preferred by Indian students are Masters in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration, Business Analytics, Data Science, among others. Auxilo Finserve does not see recent changes in immigration rules of some of the overseas destinations attracting foreign students to have an adverse impact on the company’s growth.
“We expect to grow by over 25 per cent in the overseas education loans segment across India during the current financial year and in the next, we expect our growth to rise to 30-35 per cent,” Guru added.
Educational loans from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana – currently the two biggest customers of the NBFC – are expected to see the most growth. Maharashtra, Delhi and Gujarat are the other three States where the company expects the overseas education loans to grow. The company’s Assets Under Management (AUM) has grown at 82 per cent CAGR for the period between 2020-23 and currently stands at ₹3,604 crore. The company provides loan amounts ranging from ₹35 lakh to ₹1 crore to students who usually opt for leading universities in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland and Australia.
The company is also expanding its presence in Gujarat by setting up customer touch points in Rajkot, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Vadodara.
