Bangalore instead of Boston

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16 mei 2013 | The United States want to triple the number of students going to India for higher education in the next five years. More than 100.000 Indian students visit the US every year, but only 4300 Americans go the other way. Streamlining the visa procedure must help to make India a more attractive study destination.

Just over 4000 American students go to India every year, a number the American government finds far too low. “That is still far from our goal of 15,000 in five years,” Tara Sonenshine, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, told the visiting Human Resources and Development Minister, Pallam Raju, in a roundtable interaction earlier this week.

Indian visa procedures

“We have to look at what are the obstacles to getting American students to go so that we can boost interest and participation,” Sonenshine said. The US Government is working with the Indian Government to streamline the education visa processes, which have been repeatedly identified as a key reason for why so few American students go to India. With the Indian economy booming, cities like Bangalore or Mumbai become serious options for American students.

Other countries like the UK and Germany are developing programs to attract more Indian talent. The US remains by far the most popular destination for Indian students. Last year the number of enrolments has risen with 20 percent while the number of international students that visited the US dropped for all other countries except Brazil. The coming years the student traffic between India and the US might become, although only a bit, more balanced.