[1]New Delhi: Student Mikael Haris is wrestling with the sort of question confronting others across India, including companies, investors and banks, following the 18 per cent slump in the rupee this year.
With plans to study for a masters degree in marketing in London from this month, he is trying to decide whether to pay his course fees up front and secure a discount, or to spread them out in the hope that a rebound in the rupee will ultimately reduce his costs.
“We are kind of speculating how to pay the fee, to see whether the rupee will regain its strength. It is a strategy that makes you think, how to lower your expenses,” Haris said.
The slump in the rupee as the country struggles with decade-low economic growth and a record current account deficit has hit confidence across the country and among international investors.
For the 800,000 or so students who go overseas to study each year, the main question is whether they can still afford to do so as their costs in rupees have risen by as much as 20 percent. The top three destinations to study are the United States, Britain and Australia.
ASSOCHAM estimated overseas Indian students spend the equivalent of about $15 billion a year to pursue their studies.
“If the currency continues to depreciate, it will certainly put a doubt in the mind of students on whether to look at going abroad next year or not,” said New Delhi-based Ajay Mittal, a director at International Placewell Consultants.
“If the slide does not stop it may affect the January or next September admissions,” Mittal said. So far, US schools say there has been no significant drop off in the number of Indian students, the second-largest population of foreign students after the Chinese.
That does not mean there will not be a fall though, said Gary Hamme, associate vice president for enrolment management at the Florida Institute of Technology.
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[1] http://archive.asianage.com/girls-students0060jpg-067