On the sidelines of the groundbreaking ceremony for Illinois Institute of Technology’s Mumbai campus on Tuesday, Mallik Sundharam, vice president for enrolment management and student affairs at the university, said the move reflects shifting mobility trends, with employers increasingly moving to where talent is.
“In the past 20 years, globally mobile learners have increased from 1.2 million to 7.4 million. Gone are the days when students simply moved to developed nations for education followed by employment,” Sundharam told The PIE News.
“In the past five years alone, 33 global capability centres have been established in India. The country is no longer seen just in terms of volume or service capacity – it is increasingly viewed as a hub of talent,”
“As employers move to where talent is, it is natural for universities to follow. We launched the strategy, ‘meet the learners where they are’, to serve employers and students where they are, which is the whole vision behind establishing this campus.”
The first intake will be around 250 students, and the campus will have capacity for close to 1,200
Mallik Sundharam, Illinois Institute of Technology
It marks the first US institution approved by the UGC to establish a degree-granting campus in India. The campus will be established in the Godrej business district in the Mumbai suburb of Vikhroli, spanning approximately 90,000 square feet, with support from Illinois Tech alum and Godrej & Boyce managing director, Jamshyd Godrej.
It is expected to open within the next three months, with classes beginning in Fall 2026, and will serve as the university’s Mumbai headquarters for three to five years before relocating to the Maharashtra government-backed International Educity on the outskirts of Navi Mumbai, according to Sundharam.
“The first intake will be around 250 students, and the campus will have capacity for close to 1,200. We are already seeing strong interest from Dubai, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia,” he said.
For Sundharam, Illinois Tech’s India journey has been transformative – from broadcasting distance-learning programs via video cassettes in 1998 to launching a degree-granting campus offering AI, computer science and business programs with strong industry integration.
While the Vikhroli campus – a replica of Chicago landmark S. R. Crown Hall – is set to feature modern laboratories, co-working spaces and sports facilities, its potential differentiator lies in the introduction of Illinois Tech’s Elevate program, a four-year blueprint designed to prepare students for employment after graduation.
The university will be working with industry behemoths such as Godrej, Tata, Reliance, Chase and Steelcase, along with more than 100 other employers in the Godrej business district, who will participate in work-and-learn programs in which they will advise on curriculum, contribute to teaching and host students in structured, degree-integrated work placements.
Like the branch campuses of UK and Australian universities that have recently opened in India, supporting students’ transition into strong employment outcomes will be central to Illinois Tech’s strategy, at a time when only 55% of Indian graduates are projected to be globally employable in 2025.
“We have three layers of integration. One is the advisory board, where the CEOs of these companies will advise from an overall structural perspective. We also embed them in our curriculum, so they will be teaching some of our courses, both as guest lecturers and in degree-granting capacities,” stated Sundharam.
“The last part is employer embedment through co-op programs, where students spend six months in school and six months working with employers. In some cases, they will do three days of school and two days of employment in a given week,” he added.
He highlighted that students will be introduced to 21st-century skills, including business communication, in the first year, practise them in the second semester, be exposed to employers in the third, and work with them in subsequent semesters, earning badges as they build the skills they need.
To facilitate these industry-integrated programs, international staff from Illinois Tech’s Chicago campus, Indian academics, and US- and foreign-educated scholars will jointly deliver courses.
Students at the India campus will also have the opportunity to spend a semester or a year at the Chicago campus at no additional cost. Additionally, the India campus will partner with the University of Mumbai, one of the largest university systems in the world.
“We have signed an MoU with the University of Mumbai. If students want to learn about Mumbai culture or history, there’s no better partner than the University of Mumbai,” said Sundharam.
“We see it as an ecosystem that we are creating. We are going to learn from each other, depend on each other, and see how we can support each other.”
While the undergraduate program at the Mumbai campus will cost around INR 16 lakh (nearly £13,000) and postgraduate programs around INR 20 lakh (£16,000), the university aims to leverage its 10,000-strong India alumni network to create an endowment fund to improve affordability and access for students who need it most.
“For us, it’s a holistic admissions process. We don’t want a single examination to be a barrier to access. We look at the last three years of high school grades and SOPs, evaluating students on how they present themselves rather than just one score,” the VP said.
“And with the endowment for scholarships, we’ll have a way to increase access and award students who deserve it, including those from low-income backgrounds.”
Despite a 17% drop in US international enrolments in 2025/26, Illinois Tech has weathered the storm through global expansion, including through partnerships in Kazakhstan and China. The university now sees India’s competitive IBC landscape as a test to differentiate itself through a multi-disciplinary, skill-focused US-style education.
“I think US universities have always been well known for experiential learning, so we believe in not educating students just through knowledge, but through skills. That’s what’s going to be very unique,” stated Sundharam.
“Students make decisions on which path to take in 11th or 12th grade when they really don’t know what they want. This (Mumbai campus) will give them an opportunity to be multi-disciplinary. They may want to do engineering but not have an engineering background – our approach allows them to explore that.”
And how does the university see suggestions that international universities coming into India have an upper edge over India’s own universities? It sees it as an opportunity to evolve Indian higher education while learning from Indian educators.
“If you look at any industry in India, the first aspect of growth comes from privatisation, and the second comes from internationalisation, whether it’s the telecom industry or others. That’s the phase of growth we are going through in education,” said Sundharam.
“Currently at Illinois Tech, even with first-generation students, the employment rate is 92%. That shows what the education system can provide. We also have a lot to learn from Indian educators. We should see this as a collaboration — we aim to evolve the education industry rather than compete with it.”
