“Higher ranked” University of Southampton plans to enroll 10,000 students at its India campus – Education News

Every year, nearly 0.8 million students who attempt to but don’t get into top league institutes like IITs, IIMs and ISB opt for weaker colleges or go abroad for higher studies. In order to target these “creamy students”, the University of Southampton is setting up campus in Gurgaon which will be operational from next year. Once operational, this will be the second foreign university to set up a campus in India after Australia-based Deakin University that opened its first international campus in India in January this year.

“India has a huge young population who wants high-quality tertiary education. The Indian government of India has opened the doors for foreign quality universities. We see a great opportunity with University of Southampton which is ranked top in several global rankings,” said Lil Bremermann-Richard, group CEO of Oxford International Education, which is assisting the university in setting up the campus and student acquisition.

She said that recent restrictions in immigration rules in countries such as Canada, Australia and the UK are going to work in their favour. “For numerous reasons, a lot of students don’t want to study abroad either because of their family commitments or because they don’t want to leave the country. Also, Canada, US, and Australia have become a lot more expensive because of the inflation. Our programmes are going to cost 40% lower as compared to studying abroad,” she said.

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As per QS World University Rankings 2025, the University of Southampton is ranked 80th globally whereas in the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2025, it is ranked at 115. In comparison, the highest ranked Indian institute in QS rankings is IIT Bombay (at #118) whereas Indian Institute of Science (at #251-300) is top-ranked Indian institute in Times Higher Education’s rankings.

Meanwhile, the University of Southampton plans to start with four undergraduate and two masters programmes with focus on engineering and management education. “We are starting small. We will have about 200 students in the first year. We will progressively grow with an ambition to get close to enrolling 10,000 students annually in about 10 years. However, high-quality education is not about volume,” said Bremermann-Richard.

Experts argue that foreign universities are likely to face a bunch of challenges in India. “The first roadblock is to meet the compliance criteria of the government. To attract faculty with a competitive salary structure is another challenge. They will have to compete with premium institutions in India in that area. It is not going to be a walkover for them,” said Satish Modh, dean (faculty of commerce and business studies) at Somaiya Vidyavihar University.

On the faculty side, the University of Southampton is planning to hire a combination of foreign and local academicians. “We are prepared to bring academics from overseas. We are aware of the shortage of high-quality academics. We are opening the doors for the best. In the beginning, we will have more foreign academics, particularly from the UK. But we are hoping to reach a good balance in the future,” said Bremermann-Richard.

On the faculty side, we are going to offer a combination of foreign academics and domestic. We are prepared to bring academics from overseas as much as required but we are aware of the shortage of high quality academics. I think it’s the first one outside of GIFT city.

However, this is slightly different because my understanding is that in order to open a university outside of GIFT city, you need Ministry of Education approval. This is the only university that has received University Grants Commission approval to operate across India. So you don’t need those approvals for GIFT. But then you can only operate in GIFT city. Whilst our university, we can expand it in different cities across India as we see the demand.

There are two key areas to understand. One is India has a huge young population that wants high-quality tertiary education. Approximately 800,000 kids that finish their 12th cannot get into IIT and the Indian School of Business. Not because they don’t meet the criteria, but because the universities are full up post 12. This 800,000 students, they’re they’re full, they’re filled. But that 800,000 extra students that don’t have their only choice either go to a weaker university or go and study overseas. That’s a massive market size.

For numerous reasons, we dont want to study abroad either because of family commitments or because they don’t want to leave their country or because they cannot afford. The demand is there in terms of science. If you pay attention at the changes in immigration rules in Canada, Australia and the UK particularly, there have been a lot more restrictions. So now dependents cannot go to the UK. Also, Canada, US, Australia has become a lot more expensive because of inflation. The number of students wanting to study or even able to study abroad is becoming lesser.

The government of India has actually opened the doors for foreign quality universities to come to India. We’ve seen a great opportunity with University of Southampton that is top 100 in the world in all of them – QS, Times higher education and FT. In some of them, we are top 50; in some, it’s top 100. So I think this for those three reasons, this is a great opportunity.

In fact, we are starting with four undergraduate programmes. You can do your undergraduate in India and then go and study in the US for your masters, which is a shorter period to be abroad. Because a masters is either one year in the UK or two years. We have 4 undergraduate and two masters. The four undergraduates are BSC in accounting and finance, BSC in Business Management, BSC in Economics and BSC in Computer Science, and Masters are MSC in finance and MSC in international finance and tech.

Southampton University is a very highly ranked university. This is for the highly academic kids. We are going to be careful to ensure that we deliver the right quality to the right students. We are starting small and going we are looking at the first year to have approximately 200 students. We have told the UGC 150, but the demand is quite exciting at the moment. We are going to progressively grow with an ambition to get to close to 10,000 students in 10 years. High quality education is not about volume, it is about quality.

We are putting a lot of effort on research and employability to ensure that we are offering students the skills that India needs immediately for the continuation and acceleration of India’s growth.

On the faculty side, we are going to offer a combination of foreign academics and domestic. We are prepared to bring academics from overseas as much as required but we are aware of the shortage of high quality academics. We are going to open the doors to the best. In the beginning, maybe more foreign academics, from UK particularly, and then less of the India-based academics. But we are hoping to reach a good balance.

We are hiring faculty right now and we may bring faculty from Southampton that is currently in Southampton if required, particularly in the first year as we fix the best combination. In terms of admitting students, the programs have a clear entry criteria which is already on our website and we are going to carefully review students applications against the entry criteria including personal statements and we are going to be strict on this because University of Southampton is a premium university in terms of academic performance. We are going to uphold that in order to deliver students with a Southampton degree at the Delhi campus which will be exactly the same degree as any student at Southampton in the UK campus.

I think our track record of research and development in areas of business and tech are outstanding. We also have a number of employers that will be committing to internships, placements and job interviews. The University of Southampton has over 1,700 alumni in India who are successful entrepreneurs or professionals. We are going to offer an international education experience in India. It’s something that Southampton has done before in Malaysia already where they are extremely successful. They have a campus in Malaysia. We are going to offer employability, research and excellent facilities.

Our competitors are not in the top 100 yet. I do appreciate they have a longer track record in India in terms of placing graduates. The Indian student market is becoming more and more ambitious and they want to differentiate.

It’s going to cost less because they are going to do it at 60% of the cost as compared to going abroad. We have great universities in India – IIT, ISB, Ashoka – all of them are excellent, but they are local universities. There’s a space for all of us. There’s a surplus of 800,000 high-quality students. That don’t get a place in these universities.

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