Since the past few days, the only thing that everyone is talking about is the rising dollar and falling rupee. Moreover, there are numerous articles on how this is affecting the lives of people in India. For students who are studying abroad, for families who want to holiday abroad; the US and the UK seem like a mirage, a shimmering promise of a dream which has now turned dull.

Undeniably, the falling value of rupee indicates that to study, holiday, live and work abroad will get expensive but it is not unachievable. Who are the people who plan their annual vacations abroad? Businessmen, industrialists and upper middleclass Indian families, right? Well, these people can still ‘afford’ that trip by just shelling out a few thousand dollars or pounds more.

Baseless apprehension?

For an average Indian middle class family, after all, a trip to the US or the UK will always be an once-in-a-lifetime experience. And for the students who are academically inclined but come from a poorer background, they always have the backing of education loans or scholarships offered by Universities abroad. For students and families who go abroad depending on bank loans, well, how does it really matter if you have to take a loan of Rs.10 lakhs instead of Rs.5 lakhs? EMI’s and part-payment schemes still ensure that you pay twice of the loan amount! Also, lets looks at this like this – when colleges gave accepted your application form and you have got the admission, do you think parents will ever ask you to give that up?

Frankly, the rising dollar is more of a fear psychosis right now and very few will nix their dreams to study abroad.

For the students who really want to study abroad, a temporary rise in dollar value is not going to force you to shelve your plans. And, if the need to study abroad is so high and the US or the UK is unaffordable; there’s always Europe, Singapore, South East Asia, New Zealand, China, Scandinavian countries and more.

As per the current industry statistics, there are nearly 1,50,000 to 2,00,000 Indian students going abroad to study in universities of the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Europe. Is it really a possibility that all of a sudden the falling rupee value could dramatically reverse this figure?

For Indians, the rising dollar seems daunting as we are already dealing with fuel hikes and general inflation in our everyday life. Once the dollar stabilises, things will fall into place like they always do. Otherwise, like every other price hike, we will learn to shell out more for studying abroad, as well.

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