The UAE is emerging as a serious challenger to the legacy Big Four study abroad destinations for Indian students — the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. More and more Indians are pivoting towards the UAE as it offers lower fees and a “foreseeable structure to what life after the degree looks like,” Praneet Singh, Assistant Vice President (University Partnerships) of global education platform upGrad Study Abroad, told EnterpriseAM.

There has been a 55x surge in Indian student interest in the UAE. This comes on the back of traditional Anglosphere hubs dulling career prospects as visa regimes tighten and the cost-benefit math worsens, amid a weakening INR. Student applications to the US fell 13% y-o-y in 2025 and Canada’s share dropped to 9.3% from 17.8%, while preference for Germany’s rose to 32.6%, as per upGrad’s report.

Psychology and proximity are critical drivers of the UAE’s appeal, including visible infrastructure development, rapid digital transformation, and strong growth across sectors like energy, consulting, engineering, and technology. “As a parent, it’s psychologically safer to send a young adult to the UAE, which is a four-hour flight, versus to the US or Australia,” said Singh.

Macro signals inform decision-making: The UAE’s significant foreign direct investment inflows, predicted to rise to USD 65.3 bn (AED 240 bn) by 2031, translate directly into job creation and labour-market predictability. “That foreseeability is central to how parents and students think about education investments,” Singh explained.

Indians account for 43% of international students in Dubai. For Indian students targeting post-study employment in the Middle East, the UAE is a strategic entry point with cultural familiarity and an English-speaking ecosystem, Singh noted.

Students echo these drivers: “It’s close to India and feels like a home away from home,” said Rachita, a 25-year-old Indian student pursuing a second master’s degree in marketing in Dubai. The UAE was Rachitai’s first-choice due to its prospects in marketing careers, a valuable learning environment as well as global exposure.

Only 19.9% prioritize permanent residency, while 45.7% prioritize tangible career outcomes, according to upGrad’s Transnational Education Report — highlighting a pragmatism among the Indian students.

Policy incentives add to appeal: The Golden Visa framework in the UAE for high-performing graduates offers longer-term residency certainty (for 5-10 years). Singh argued that this clarity is increasingly valuable for globally mobile students operating in fast-changing labor markets led by digitization and AI.

Dubai at the fore: By creating freezones to host international branch campuses, the emirates, particularly Dubai, is poised as a global education hub, offering degrees from global legacy institutions at nearly half the price point, added Singh. A postgraduate degree costs roughly USD 35k in the UAE, roughly half of a program in the US/UK programmes which costs USD 70k in the US, he said. Living costs in Dubai come at around USD 11k versus USD 25k in New York or London.

Investments by global universities in the UAE are “indicative signals” that lower perceived academic risk and position the Gulf as a credible alternative to traditional Western destinations, according to Singh. Dubai and Abu Dhabi together host one of the world’s densest clusters of international branch campuses (including heavyweights like University of Birmingham, New York University, Rochester Institute, Sorbonne, and Cornell).

India is the world’s leading source of international students, showing sustained growth in outbound mobility with an 8.84% compound annual growth rate between 2016-2024. Annual outward remittances for ‘studies abroad’ saw a 20x increase over the past decade, soaring from USD 160 mn in 2014 to nearly USD 3.4 bn in 2024.

Global academic brands, policy predictability, and clearer employment pathways are converging to position the UAE as a durable pillar of India’s study-abroad aspirations, Singh told us.

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