more and more indians now want to study abroad the number of applications by indian students for masters programmes in the us jumped again 32 in 201314 says a recent council of graduate schools report indians value perhaps overvalue foreign qualifications and this also creates more interest in studying overseas it is certainly true that top international universities are better than one finds in india but there are a lot of thirdtier us universities that are not all that excellent says philip g altbach research professor and director centre for international higher education boston college given that a lot of aspirants look at foreign shores for a better proposition than in india it is important to make a wellcalculated move when applying sometimes your best match could be the least known option as studying abroad costs a lot if you do not bag a full scholarship it requires a fine balance keeping in view the job prospects after graduation the uks scrapping of the poststudy work visa in 2012 seems to have impacted its popularity the number of indian and pakistani enrolees in english institutions has fallen by half since 2011 according to a 2014 report by the higher education funding council for england mumbaibased international education consultant pratibha jain emphasises applicants should do a reality check what are the possibilities in your chosen programme after graduation what are the opportunities in that profession in that country as well as in india if you can get quality education at a highly competitive cost in a country with a tight labour market is it worth it but you are still returning to india after spending rs 20 lakh she says adding dont look at just the glamour of studying abroad siddharth prakash rao applied to universities in the us and other destinations but eventually settled for finland most students target us universities and not europeeven if they think of europe it would be probably german universities they ignore scandinavian or nordic institutions because of the myth that it would be too expensive for example in finland education is virtually free quality of education is good and programmes are taught in english suma venkatagiri international programme coordinator international knowledge centre bangalore who counsels graduate applicants says while selecting a university do not go merely by the rankings choose the course you want to study the top universities may not have the lab for your programme go to the concerned departments section on the university website to look at the courses elec tives specialisa tions other fac tors such as fi nance and weather come later as far as the campus lo cation is con cerned venkatagiri says it is the students choice whether to go to a small town or a large city with its cost differential if i paid 6 for a snack in a suburb i would pay 11 for the same downtown as far as internships or jobs are concerned what matters are your academic credentials