Are Indian MBA Aspirants Ditching US For India? LinkedIn Post Sparks Debate
The post was shared on the professional networking platform LinkedIn by user Aviral Bhatnagar. It cites a professor from IIM Ahmedabad and reads: "Spoke to one of my IIM A professors who is also a chairperson. He was upbeat about students this year, saying that many US MBA aspirants are choosing to study in India due to immigration chaos. Fascinating that the on-ground impact is almost immediate, talent is staying back."
The post suggests that because of confusion and strict rules around US immigration, many students who would have gone abroad for an MBA are now staying back and applying to Indian institutes. It points to an immediate impact being seen at ground level in top institutes like IIMs.
While NDTV cannot verify the authenticity of the conversation quoted in the post, it has triggered mixed reactions online.
Comments on the post reflect a wide range of opinions
One user wrote: "The concept of brain drain is often viewed negatively in India, but it's actually a natural outcome of global economic forces... Trying to block this movement wouldn't create more jobs at home; it could lead to higher unemployment and underutilisation of skills."
Another user said: "Talent is staying back? Too early to say that. There are chances that the same group of students would migrate overseas for their jobs after graduation. This is a temporary constraint."
A third comment noted: "It's fascinating how these immigration challenges are turning into unexpected opportunities for india's business schools and creating this natural talent pipeline that benefits everyone locally."
A fourth user pointed out: "Talent that's being forced to stay back due to geopolitical reasons only, is not going to stay back the moment things on that front change... the factors which forced leakage of talent from India are still the same."
A fifth user added: "I think it's a temporary phenomenon... the only way we can take advantage is if we can sustain this trend and expand capacities in IITs, IIMs, AIIMS etc. Otherwise, it will only add competition in our already intense competitive landscape."
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The Hindu
19 minutes ago
- The Hindu
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Chandra Devi, 53, holds up a loan slip, its creases more prominent than its text. It states that she borrowed a loan of ₹35,000, allegedly from RBL Bank, a private sector institution, in May 2024. 'I have to repay the loan and an interest rate of do taka (2%),' Chandra declares. But the slip states that the interest rate is a hefty 25% over two years. Chandra is sitting in a mango orchard with a group of women at Dekuli Chatti village in Darbhanga district of Bihar. Around her, children climb trees under an overcast sky. Some of them clamber to the top, others hang upside down from branches. Their mothers sit on a yellow plastic sheet spread over the grass. While watching their children's antics, they share their struggles on repaying dues. According to the 2022 caste survey of Bihar, 34% of households in the State earn ₹6,000 or less per month. In June 2025, Piramal Enterprises, an Indian non-banking financial company (NBFC) focused on financial services, published a study. In it, they stated that the share of Indian households from economically weaker sections of society — that is, those earning ₹1-2 lakh a year — who borrowed from formal channels, such as banks and NBFCs, contracted by 4.2% between 2018-19 and 2022-23. At the same time, the share of households borrowing from informal or non-institutional sources of credit, such as money lenders, friends, families, and shopkeepers, grew by 5.8%. The data also shows that Bihar accounts for the highest share (18%) of households in India who borrow from non-institutional lenders. The study was based on data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, an independent private entity that serves as an economic think tank as well as a socioeconomic database. However, many households that borrow from non-institutional lenders also borrow from microfinance institutions, which are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country's central bank. 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Chandra says she doesn't know the name of the bank from which she borrowed a loan; instead, she identifies it by its location — Donar, a locality in Darbhanga. 'I was asked to give my Aadhaar card, nothing else,' she says, about the process of securing the loan. The slip she holds says the loan was taken for 'agriculture-livestock/diary/poultry/cattle' purposes, but Chandra, the mother of two daughters and a son, says she borrowed it for her older daughter's wedding. Before the wedding, the groom's family demanded a motorcycle as part of dowry. Chandra borrowed money from the village mahajan (money lender). When that didn't suffice, she went to a women's self help group (SHG). Finally, she secured a loan, allegedly from RBL Bank. As Chandra's husband has been out of work for several months due to an illness, her family depends entirely on the amount her son sends home. 'He sells apples in Kolkata, so he cannot always send money.' she says. 'After all, everything is so expensive these days.' Chandra also worries that she has a teenage daughter who will 'soon be of marriageable age.' Punam Devi, 42, who is also from the Musahar community, keeps two documents close to her chest. One shows that she took a loan of ₹40,000, allegedly from Pyramid Finserve, an emerging NBFC, in July 2024. Punam borrowed the loan for her younger son, who had been diagnosed with meningitis. The other document shows that she borrowed another loan of ₹75,000, allegedly from Utkarsh Small Finance Bank Limited, a commercial bank focused on 'providing banking and financial services, particularly to underserved and unserved sections of the population, primarily in rural and semi-urban areas.' This loan, borrowed to pay for treatment of her husband who lost a leg in an accident, was cleared on March 23 this year with an interest rate of 28%, as per the document. Punam says she had to pay installments every fortnight. After her husband's accident, the family's income is now nearly negligible, making it all the more challenging for them to repay the loan. Both men were treated at private hospitals. 'We don't get admission in government hospitals,' she says. The other women nod along. Parvati Devi, 38, says her husband works in Bengaluru, Karnataka, as a daily wage labourer. He left 15 days ago and will return only next year. 'We had to borrow money for our eldest daughter's wedding,' says Parvati, who also belongs to the Musahar community. 'We borrowed nearly ₹1.5 lakh from the local money lender four years ago. Unable to repay the loan, I took three loans from three microfinance institutions.' Her total liability amounted to ₹1.35 lakh and she had to pay monthly installments of about ₹7,000. 'Agents never fail to turn up' Chandra, Punam, and Parvati sought loans for weddings or for treatments in hospitals and struggled to repay the amounts. 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She has six children — three daughters and three sons — and all of them are married. She says she has been left alone to repay the loans she borrowed for their weddings and for other expenses. 'The recovery agent took away everything I had — a table, a chair, my bed, the cooker, the gas cylinder, and even my supply of wheat for the year. He stripped my house empty.' When asked if she reported the incident to the police, she stares blankly. 'How can we?' she murmurs. The women say at least 20-25 families in their village alone have fled fearing recovery agents. As they start counting and naming the families, many of them turn towards Pawan Devi. Pawan took loans from five microfinance institutions for her son's wedding, but she has been unable to repay the amount. Pawan and her family fled the village, spent more than a year in Punjab, and returned only last week. Pawan cannot recall the name of the village where she and her family stayed. 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