Surge in Indian student admissions in Russia? Possible? YES Plausible? YES Proven? NO

TL;DR

• Recent reports suggest a 34% surge in Indian students enrolling in Russian universities, but is this claim credible? Data from India’s Bureau of Immigration shows a sharp increase in students heading to Russia over the past three years. 
• However, Russia’s Education Ministry hasn’t released updated figures, and some sources question the accuracy of the numbers. 
• The rise could reflect growing interest in Russian medical colleges, but without clearer data, the extent of the trend remains uncertain.
• As geopolitical dynamics shift and students seek affordable education abroad, Russia’s potential as a study destination is worth watching. 

Read on to uncover the full story behind the numbers and whether this surge is fact or fiction.

Over the past week, several publications have run a virtually identical story that claims Russia is experiencing a surge in enrolment of Indian students, specifically a rise of 34 percent. Some reports gave numbers of Indian students going to Russia over the past three years – 

Doing the math, the figure for 2023 represents an 18.8 percent increase over 2022; the figure for 2024 represents a 33.9 percent increase over 2023. 

Out of these several publications, three mentioned that the source of this information was an annexure to an answer to an unstarred question (Number 1730) in the Lok Sabha put by E.T. Mohammad Basheer MP regarding “students pursuing study in foreign countries”.  Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar answered Basheer’s question on March 10, 2025, The complete official record of the question and answer can be seen at https://sansad.in/ls/questions/questions-and-answers which states the BoI data. The data table has been added at the end for you to go through it.

In replying to another question in December 2024, the Minister of State told the Lok Sabha that the Education Ministry does not maintain data related to Indian students going abroad for higher studies but it has the information on number of Indians who disclosed their purpose of visit as ‘Study or Education’ while going abroad in the last five years as provided by the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

For his answer to the March 10 question, Mazumdar drew on the same BoI data. The Bureau of Immigration got this data in the course of processing Indians at immigration counters at airports, sea ports, and Integrated Check Posts. These are self-declarations. How rigorously the BoI cross-checks the departing travelers’ statements is unknown.

YUNO LEARNING is reproducing the annexure supplied by the minister. The statistics are fascinating.  Imagine going to South Sudan. According to the BoI data, one person went there in 2022 and two people went there in 2023 … for studies!

Bureau of Immigration data shows Indians going to the most remarkable places in search of knowledge … Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Aland Islands, Swaziland, and even the “Neutral Zone”. 

[We just had to look up the last mentioned place. An area of some 5,770 square kilometers between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was left undefined when the border was established in 1922 and for the past 100 years, it has been known as the Neutral Zone. According to the BoI figures, 14 Indians went there to study in 2023 and six went there in 2024!]

One must believe that if the information has been supplied by a department of the Union Government, then it must be reliable. Even picturing a grain of salt in our minds is unwarranted. If BoI data says that 19,784, 23,503, and 31,444 went to study in Russia in 2022, ’23, and ’24 respectively, then we must believe that the figures for Russia are just as pinpoint accurate as the figures for East Timor.

Is there any way to cross-check the Bureau of Immigration’s figures, as cited by the Ministry of Education?

The Education and Science Ministry of the Russian Federation must maintain data on international student enrolment in institutions of higher learning in the Russian Federation. Research reveals that Russian institutions of higher learning are integrated into a centralized system. While the Federation’s 22 republics have a degree of autonomy in various areas, such as cultural and language policies, their institutions of higher education abide by the framework set by the federal government. This includes regulations and policies, including those related to the enrollment of international students. The federal Ministry for Education and Science sets quotas for state-funded placements for international students, requirements for accreditation, and curriculum standards.

What about country-wise figures for international students throughout all the Russian republics? 

The Ministry must have the numbers but it has released no data since 2022-23. Nothing has been released for 2023-24 or 2024-25.

Some information is found in a report published by TAdvisor.  This source is a Russian internet news portal. It describes itself as Russia’s first media website powered by artificial intelligence.

On January 10, 2025, TAdvisor reported  

“The number of foreign students in Russian higher educational institutions in 2024 increased to 389 thousand people. TAdvisor got acquainted with such data in January 2025. According to national development goals, by 2025 this figure is planned to increase to 410 thousand people.  The data are contained in the Unified Plan for Achieving National Development Goals until 2030 and for the future until 2036, approved by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.”

A related news item reported, “Moscow State University broke the record for admission of foreign students”.

“Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov (Moscow State University) broke the record for the number of admitted foreign students, accepting in 2024 about 2.9 thousand applicants from abroad. This became known at the end of August 2024. This result was the highest since 2015, as announced by the rector of the university Viktor Sadovnichy at a press conference at the beginning of the new academic year.”

These news items were about international students generally and had nothing to say about Indian students enrolled in Russian institutions.

Reports that had passing mentions of Indian students were found in the TAdvisor website archive:

2024

Record number of foreign students in Russia:

On July 10, 2024, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of Russia Konstantin Mogilevsky said that in 2024, about 355 thousand foreign students study at Russian universities. This is the highest indicator in the history of the Russian education system. In 2023, the number of foreign students was about 8 percent of the total number of students in Russia, which is about 4 million people.  Most foreign students come from countries that were part of the Soviet Union and from China, Iran, India, and Africa. There is also a significant increase in the number of students from Latin America.

2023

The number of foreign students in Russia increased by 9 percent

On July 20, 2023 analysis made by the Center for Expertise and Research Projects of the University of Synergy of official data for the years 2013 to 2022, was presented on the website of the Ministry of Education and Science. The study showed that after a slowdown in the growth rate of the number of foreign students in 2020-2021 from 6 to 3 percent, caused largely by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, by 2022, the number of foreign student enrolments was up by 9 percent.  In general, since 2016, the share of students from non-CIS countries has been steadily increasing, and in 2022 students from non-CIS countries accounted for 36 percent of all foreigners receiving higher education in Russia. … The majority of students from India are enrolled in medical colleges and universities.

YUNO LEARNING weighed up the numerous recent reports of a 34 percent hike in the number of Indian students being admitted to Russian colleges and universities and agrees that such a surge is possible BUT

• The data presented by India’s Union Education Ministry raises more doubts than it resolves.
• Russian Education and Science Ministry data is available for 2022-23 but not for 2023-24 or 2024-25.
• Information found on a Russian internet news portal may or may not be complete and accurate. The credibility of the source is difficult to judge.

Should readers swallow the stories of a big surge in Indian student admissions in Russian colleges and universities?

Not without more and better proof.

NOW HAVE A LITTLE FUN. Skim through the table below and see where the Bureau of Immigration thinks that Indians went “to study” in 2022, 2023, and 2024.