 "IITs, IIMs see no threat from US prez-elect Trump")
Premier institutes like Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are unruffled in the wake of Donald Trump’s win as the new president of United States of America (USA), even as students pursuing overseas education raise concerns of getting admission and their safety.
Citing reasons for the optimism, the premier institutes state that at the worst, the new US president would go after low skilled immigrants from neighbouring countries whereas IIT and IIM graduates grab high-skilled blue collar jobs.
Moreover, in terms of institutional collaboration, a Trump win will not have much impact since US is less conducive than Europe due to the former’s contrasting academic calendar. Add to that, unlike European B-schools which run more pre-experience MBA programs, the US is more focused on such programs for executives with sufficient prior work experience. Indian B-schools mostly run MBA programs with a pre-experience focus, i.e. for freshers.
According to Ashish Nanda, director of IIM Ahmedabad, with its exchange programs spread across the world and not heavily focused on the US alone, the direct impact of Trump’s win would be minimal. IIM-A has over 80 institutional collaborations across the world.
“It’s (Trump’s win) direct impact will be small. We have several exchange program all over the world with international institutes, some of which are in Europe, US, Middle East. These programs are equal-to-equal basis where students from here go there and their students come here. None of our exchange students go with the intention of seeking long term employment,” Nanda says.
Ajit Prasad, director of IIM Lucknow, however, said that it was too early to comment on a Donald Trump win impact on the Indian higher education.
IIMs do feel the impact would be minimal in terms of placements too. In case of IIM-A, as against its audited final placement report for the year 2015 which reported two US positions being bagged by its students, the western country did not feature separately as one of the locations in the 2016 audited report, though eight students were placed in the Asia Pacific locations this year.
“Even in terms of our students looking for international jobs, the impact of Trump’s win is going to be limited since our students are employed all over the world, such as Singapore, Middle East, Hong Kong, Europe and US. The impact will also be small on our students since they are looking at high skilled jobs,” Nanda opines.
Sudhir Jain, director of IIT Gandhinagar says, “Higher end institutes like IITs’ collaboration with US institutes is not likely to be impacted. There may be some impact for mid or lower rung institutes in finding collaborations. Similarly, exchange programs too will continue such as the one that we have with Caltech. We need to see what kind of immigration policy Trump comes up with. However, whatever be the policy, if our students go to US for further studies such as doctoral or post-doctoral programs, any US institute would want to retain them.”
However, it is the students pursuing overseas education who have raised concerns over Trump’s win, say overseas education and career advisory firms who have been allaying these fears. And why not? Number of Indian students studying in the US has been on the rise by about 25 per cent to over 165,000 during academic year 2015-16, as per the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.
However, it is the students pursuing overseas education who have raised concerns over Trump’s win, say overseas education and career advisory firms who have been allaying these fears.
And why not? Number of Indian students studying in the US has been on the rise by about 25 per cent to over 165,000 during academic year 2015-16, as per the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. As per the report, there are 165,918 students from India, making it the second leading country of origin among international students in the US. Also, one in every six international students in the US is an Indian.
ReachIvy, which advises students on applying for international studies, especially to Ivy League schools, too sees US forming 65-70 per cent of its country mix, followed by Europe (15-20), Canada (5-7), and Asia (5-7 per cent).
"Despite concerns by students and parents, our stance on this is that with $5 billion going to US from Indian students alone, Trump is not going to let go of this money. We don't think he is going to do anything to disturb this status quo," says Vibha Kagzi, founder and CEO of ReachIvy, adding that the I-20 certificate, which is issued by US-based universities granting admission, should be enough to prove Indian students training and skills.
Kagzi too is of the view that Indians getting accepted into the US is not going to be a problem since most of them work high skilled white collar jobs there.
However, as a remedy, students are being advised to continue to apply to the US even while they look at other geographies such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada, among others. With final decisions likely to be made in March-April next year, overseas education firms are hoping for further clarity in Trump’s policies and the ongoing panic.
Trump impact
- IITs, IIMs claim minimal impact of Trump win
- Say impact less on high skilled blue collar jobs which IIT, IIM graduates bag
- Indian institutes find Europe more conducive for collaborations due to similar academic calendar
- Overseas education firms ask students to hedge by applying in multiple geographies
- Number of Indian students studying in US went up by 25% in 2015-16
