Last month’s opening of the UK’s first overseas branch campus in India – the University of Southampton Delhi – was another a landmark moment in a country that has historically made it virtually impossible for foreign universities to operate there – despite its huge appetite for good-quality higher education.
In 2023, India surpassed China to become the world’s most populous country, with a college-age population (18 to 23) estimated at 140 million. Yet until recently, Western universities were deterred from addressing this demand by onerous regulations that micromanaged almost every aspect of campus operations.
For example, the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) dictated, among many other things, the size of faculty offices, the configuration of classroom furniture, minimum land area and optimal carpet area per student. It also set rigid technology standards, including a minimum computer processor speed, internet bandwidth thresholds, norms for overhead projectors and specifications for multimedia lab headsets.
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Meanwhile, the University Grants Commission (UGC) prohibited Western universities from charging tuition fees higher than those charged by comparable Indian universities. It also banned the repatriation of profits. And it allowed foreign institutions to operate only through partnerships with domestic institutions, which retained ultimate degree-granting authority.
But the National Education Policy of 2020 finally saw Delhi recognise the need to encourage Western universities to establish branches to help achieve the government’s goal to increase the higher education gross enrolment ratio from 28 per cent in 2020 to 50 per cent by 2035.
Growth of India's College-Age Population from 2000 to 2025
100,000110,000120,000130,000140,000
Population (millions)
200020052010201520202025
Year
Source: United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs
Regulatory restrictions began to be lifted in 2023. Norms concerning land dimensions were abolished. Foreign universities were allowed to grant their own degrees independently of any Indian partner. The cap on tuition rates was eliminated, and barriers to the repatriation of branch profits were removed. Indeed, universities that operate in the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (“Gift City”) – where Australia’s Deakin University opened India’s first overseas branch campus a year ago – won’t even have to pay taxes on their profits, at least initially
Those concessions prompted a steady stream of Western universities announcing plans for Indian campuses, but hardly a deluge. Only a handful of Western universities have so far received formal UGC approval to operate outside Gift City: As well as Southampton, the University of Liverpool, Bengaluru will open a year from now, and the University of York is planning a campus in Mumbai, subject to regulatory approval.
The perceived lack of interest from US universities is particularly striking. So far, Illinois Tech Mumbai is the only US branch campus to have been approved. Why would that be in a country whose GDP per capita has grown from approximately $2,100 (£1,560) in 2020 to about $2,850 in 2025 and whose burgeoning middle class, estimated at more than 400 million individuals, contains many families with the financial means and desire to pay for an American, British or Australian education because of its perceived quality and prestige? Western universities’ enthusiasm to be early movers should be all the greater given the relatively weak competition.
Part of the answer is surely that obstacles remain in the way of establishing Indian branch campuses. Only universities ranked in the world top 500 (the precise ranking is not specified) are eligible to do so, for instance – and that is one of several conditions that overseas universities must meet to establish a branch campus; UGC requirements include offering merit-based or need-based scholarships, undergoing quality assurance audits, and submitting annual reports to the UGC. And the UGC is only one of the regulatory bodies from which permission must be obtained: the Ministry of Education and local governments are two more, while few direct incentives exist to offset the financial and logistical challenges.
Growth of India's Post-Secondary Institution Gross Enrolment Ratio
Source: United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs
Such barriers are likely to be seen as especially prohibitive by US universities, which have weaker historical ties to India than Australian and, especially, British universities and whose high operating costs render a venture in a highly restrictive regulatory environment particularly risky.
To encourage more Western universities to enter the national market, the Indian government should remove these obstacles. As a first step, it should establish “free zones” in major metropolitan centres, such as Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore – a measure currently proposed but not yet approved. At a later stage, it should eliminate the free zones altogether and further relax regulatory restrictions throughout the whole of India.
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Furthermore, to attract a greater number of academically sound, but not necessarily highly ranked, institutions, it should replace ranking with accreditation as the principal eligibility criterion. And it should consolidate and simplify the multiple layers of approval necessary to establish a branch campus; perhaps help in that regard will come from the forthcoming replacement of the UGC and AICTE (as well as the National Council for Teacher Education) with a single regulatory authority, the Higher Education Commission of India.
Lastly, the Indian government should give foreign universities special tax incentives, such as customs duty waivers, tax holidays and investment credits, regardless of where in the country they set up.
These measures could really open the door to the proliferation of international branch campuses in the country. As things stand, however, it is hard to see Western institutions making a significant contribution to meeting the pressing Indian demand for good-quality higher education.