(Image: Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)
By Ignatius Chithelen. He is the publisher of Global Indian Times and author of Six Degrees of Education and Passage from India to America. A CFA, Chithelen is manager of Banyan Tree Capital, New York.
May 21, 2026
Since the 2010s, most top students from India, including from the reputed Indian Institutes of Technology, avoid pursuing advanced degrees in the US since they have to borrow large sums to cover their costs.
Currently, most Indians pursuing MS degrees in the US are from mid-or-low tier colleges in India, who ignore the burden of debt, believing they will find better career opportunities in the US than in India. They are influenced by the stream of stories on the success of Indian professionals in the US, widely covered by the media in India.
Yes, many of the engineers and doctors, who migrated to the US in the 1970’s and 1980’s, achieved professional and financial success. But they were the top students in India, from the IITs and the best medical colleges. Most of them did not take on large debt to pursue advanced education in the US. More important, most found jobs in the US upon graduation.
Expecting to repeat their success today is like driving a car by looking in the rear-view mirror. The current reality, as Krishna and his classmates have found, is that the prospects of students from India finding a job in the US, especially after earning a MS from a mid-or-low ranked university, is one in twenty; US job prospects are far lower for Indians with non-STEM MS degrees. The intense competition among college graduates for jobs in India is now occurring among Indian Master’s graduates in the US.
I see Krishna at the cocktail reception after the conference ends. I wish him good luck in finding a job and paying off his debt.
Ignatius Chithelen is the publisher of Global Indian Times and author of Six Degrees of Education and Passage from India to America. A CFA, he is manager of Banyan Tree Capital, New York.
