With major universities from the UK, US, Australia and Italy opening campuses in India, a Symbiosis International report examining education hubs across Dubai, Malaysia, Mauritius, Qatar, Singapore and India highlighted the enabling conditions and constraints shaping the entry of international institutions amid global uncertainty.
The report, Mapping Transnational Education: A Report on the Emergence of Global Education Hubs, authored by B K Bhuvesha, Wali Rahman Rahmani, and Ichha Sharma, outlined key observations from the current TNE landscape, including concerns around affordability, local contextualisation, institutional sustainability, and the impact of international campuses on domestic higher education institutions.
Among its findings, the report noted that while the rise of global education hubs may reflect labour-market demand and policy priorities, it also raises questions around whether TNE is being developed primarily as a skills pipeline rather than a broader academic project.
It pointed to a stronger emphasis on teaching and program delivery over sustained research, with academic provision remaining heavily concentrated in STEM, business and finance-related disciplines, while the arts, humanities and social sciences remain limited across several hubs — a pattern increasingly visible in India as well.
The report also observed that while hubs provide access to international curricula, degrees and global institutional brands, much of this provision continues to follow a “consumption-oriented model”, where international education is imported for local uptake rather than being deeply adapted to local realities.
Echoing this, Dr Neeta Inamdar, dean of the faculty of education and research professor at SCHERPA, Symbiosis International, who mentored the report, told The PIE News that international universities in India must go beyond simply offering degree programs and instead adapt to local social, economic and developmental contexts to remain relevant in the long term.
“The development context here in India could include education, health, environmental protection to begin with. The universities that are establishing campuses here in India can begin with development-need analysis and cater to those needs apart from offering programs to aspiring students,” Inamdar said.
“By offering smaller courses or training programs they can also contribute to the skills ecosystem and entrepreneurship development in the country.”
Though it’s early to see any impact on institutions in India as of now, the increased competition may push private universities to reduce the fee charged for programs
Dr Neeta Inamdar, Symbiosis International (Deemed University)
On the regulatory side, the report questioned the continued reliance on global rankings as a key filter for international institutions entering India, noting that while the UGC’s 2023 regulations use top-500 rankings as a shorthand for quality, such metrics remain contested for their dependence on reputation indicators and their uneven fit across disciplines and national contexts.
“The evaluation system could involve the assessment of the university back in its home university, in its global standing (going beyond ranking), its discipline-wise experience and expertise, its alignment with the national development agenda, experience and expertise of the people involved, their understanding of the country etc,” stated Inamdar.
“A fair and transparent assessment of these universities by a body created specifically for this purpose will ensure the best of the universities will come in.”
The report further pointed to the possibility of increased competition for domestic institutions, particularly private universities operating in business, finance and STEM, with potential pressure on both fee structures and faculty retention.
It also highlighted that while campuses within education hubs are often marketed as more affordable alternatives to full study abroad, affordability remains relative rather than absolute for large sections of the domestic student population.
“Though it’s early to see any impact on institutions in India as of now, the increased competition may push private universities to reduce the fee charged for programs,” added Inamdar
“This downward pressure on pricing of the programs may affect their revenue streams directly. Apart from this, their costs of operation may also increase due to increasing costs of retaining quality faculty who may now receive multiple offers from the newly established campuses. These double whammy effects are anticipated to affect private universities in the coming years.”
At a broader level, the report said the continued dominance of institutions from the Global North across the TNE landscape risks reproducing older hierarchies in knowledge flows and institutional prestige, while tensions between home-country control and host-country oversight may further complicate operations for institutions with global ambitions.
The report also flagged the long-term sustainability of international branch campuses as a structural concern, noting that the planned closure of Texas A&M University’s Qatar campus by 2028 underscores the fragility of even well-established arrangements and the need for stronger student-protection and exit mechanisms across education hubs.
Speaking on the lessons Indian universities can take when planning overseas campuses or partnerships abroad, Inamdar highlighted three key considerations.
“It is about understanding the reasons why a nation wishes to host our higher education institutions — to build human capital, to upskill its population on certain aspects, or to offer alternate knowledge systems. It is this alignment that matters,” she said.
