Western discovery: it pays to study at IIMs

REVERSE BRAIN DRAIN: NRIs are heading home choosing IIMs over Wharton and Harvard.

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Mumbai: Call it reverse brain drain but not just Indian students foreigners too are queuing up to get into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management. NRIs are also heading home to pursue higher studies, choosing IIMs over Wharton and Harvard.

Twenty-six year-old Travis Donselman is IIM Kolkata’s first foreign student. He heard about the IIM during his undergraduate programme at the University of Pennsylvania.

Years later, when Travis decided to get into a management programme, he chose the IIM over Harvard and Wharton business school.

India is taking centrestage among business communities across United States. Students are showing keenness to learn the Indian business culture, as an added advantage.

What's more, the opening salaries of the IIM pass-outs now scores equal or sometimes over what a Wharton or Harvard graduate can expect.

“Numbers indicate that a student coming out of IIM is better off than a student coming out of Wharton and Harvard. Statistics reveal that a student out of Harvard placed in London gets $10,5000 and the average overseas offer for an IIM graduate is $115,000, that's a $10,000 advantage,” says Travis Edward Donselman, student, IIM Kolkata.

And students avail of the international learning experience at half the price they would pay for a Wharton or a Harvard.

A management course in India costs about $22,000 as against the $75,000 that the Harvard charges. Little surprise then that even the NRIs who could get education abroad are now returning back for their management degree.

32-year-old Gayatri Vasan left India in 1997 to pursue her graduation degree in California. Today she is planning to stay on at Hyderabad after graduating from the Indian Business School next year.

“It's only these couple of years that have really opened the way for NRIs to come back to India because of the economy and world class institutes like this,” she says.

With foreigners and overseas Indians now headed to Indian B schools, getting admission may get that much tougher for Indian students.