‘Indians’ appetite for study abroad is absolutely intact’

Traditional study abroad destinations such as the US, the UK and Canada appear increasingly unwelcoming to foreign students, yet Indians’ desire for studying abroad remains strong, says Akshay Chaturvedi, founder of study abroad platform Leverage Edu. Ina conversation with Anees Hussain, he explains how diversifying source and destination markets has helped the company navigate the policy uncertainties and why student demand for international education remains robust. Excerpts:

- AKSHAY CHATURVEDI

The Trump administration has announced an H-1Bvisa fee hike to $100,000. Howhas this impacted student interest in US education?

The interesting thing is the American dream for Indian students was already dying. We saw this coming months ago.At our peak, we had 834 enquiries per day for US education.

The lowest we have hit recently was 19 enquiries in a day. That isalmost dead fora platform at our scale. Onaverage, daily enquiries have dropped from 600 to about 40-50.This collapse happened over the last three months, well before the H-1Bannouncement.The negative news cycle had already become so crazy that interest dropped completely.

Ifstudents are not looking at the US anymore,where are they going?