Falling rupee puts foreign study costs under scanner

The rupee's depreciation against the US dollar to a historic low is forcing students headed abroad for higher education to rethink how they fund their degrees.

- Mansi Verma & Devina Sengupta

This comes at a time when a global employment squeeze is prompting many graduates to return to India without securing work abroad, leaving them to repay loans that are now costlier than they had budgeted for in rupee terms.

The Indian rupee’s (INR) slide past 90 per US dollar will hit students at various stages of their study-abroad journey, with their overall costs jumping sharply, said Victor Senapaty, founder of Westbridge Capital-backed education financier Propelld.

“The same hundred thousand dollars suddenly becomes much more expensive in rupee terms,” Senapaty said.

After breaching the 90-per-dollar mark on Wednesday, the rupee slipped further to an all-time low of 90.56 on Thursday before pulling back to close at 89.98. The domestic currency settled at 89.94 on Friday.

The average ticket size for a loan from a non-bank lender for studying in the US is ₹40 lakh. An average loan size at a bank is similar, although there is a provision to avail higher loans.