Indian parents, READ THIS NOW if you spend millions of rupees on your child's software engineering degree
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Image strictly for representational purposes only. Credit: ANTONI SHKRABA production Photograph: (Pexels)
There's clearly a disconnect between education investment and job realities in India in the IT field, which for nearly three decades was considered a sureshot ticket to job security with campus placements. READ this analysis so that you can make informed decisions
Big Tech companies like Microsoft and Indian software giants like TCS are slashing jobs and laying off their workforce. This should be a moment of reality check for Indian parents and students, who collectively spend trillions of rupees every year for software engineering courses in India or abroad, and allied entrance coachings, every year. There's clearly a disconnect between education investment and job realities in India in the IT field, which for nearly three decades was considered a sureshot ticket to job security with campus placements.
Are you spending millions on your child's software degree? AI will disrupt your dreams
Even as Indian parents continue to spend millions of rupees on IT education at home and abroad, the country's $283 billion software industry is undergoing a painful transformation of job cuts, often attributed to automation by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and 'skill gaps'.
This month, India’s largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced a cut of 12,000 jobs, which is 2 per cent of its workforce, at middle and senior levels, to become 'future ready' by investing heavily in AI.
"A number of reskilling and redeployment initiatives have been underway, said TCS, warning that it would be 'releasing associates from the organisation whose deployment may not be feasible'.
The shift is a result of AI automation of tens of thousands of repetitive IT tasks, for which global firms traditionally depended on the relatively cheap skilled labour from India. Now, clients of these IT firms who used to outsource such skills to India, are seeking innovation and not cost-cutting, because AI will take care of mundane and repetitive tasks.
AI-related roles are not growing fast enough
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The Indian parents and aspiring IT students might still try to rationalise by thinking that an education in AI would offset the job losses in traditional IT. But the truth is, at least for some years now, roles in AI, cloud and cyberseucirty are not growing fast enough.
Then there is the problem of how fast IT institutions are changing their curriculum to match the fast-changing adoption of AI. There are just not enough AI-trained instructors in the colleges and institutes. According to industry monitor Nasscom, India faces a deep skills mismatch: It will need 1 million AI professionals by next year, but less than 20 per cent of the current IT workforce is trained in these areas, it said.
The impact is already visible: From north to south India, IT Jobs are being slashed
A compilation of recent data shows that at least 50,000 IT jobs were lost in 2023 across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune, with the slide continuing into 2025.
There is a 72 per cent drop in net new hires at top IT firms in India.
Campus placements are drying up amid India's IT job slowdown
Once a sector known for campus placements, where companies lap up good talent for high salaries straight after college, software engineering is not a green pasture anymore when it comes to hiring. On average, annual fresh graduate hiring has fallen from 600,000 to just 150,000, according to recent estimates.
“20-25 per cent of fresh graduates will have no jobs,” a BBC report on the slump quoted Neeti Sharma, the CEO of HR firm TeamLease Digital, as saying.
For many parents who took education loans to send their wards to good IT courses at home or abroad, this could have a massive impact. The steady paychecks from IT jobs are now on shaky ground.
What Indian parents are spending on IT education
While clear data is not available, a gleaning of available information reveals that technical degrees like BTech in Computer Science at private colleges cost a minimum of ₹100,000 per year, or up to ₹400,000 over four years. Remember this is a low-side estimate, as costs vary in different institutes, and this amount is only the tuition fee.
Some 1.5 million engineering students are enrolled annually, many in software engineering. Domestically, the estimated spending in IT education by Indian parents likely ranges from ₹60,000 crore to 90,000 crore annually.
Then there is entrance coaching fees for exams like JEE or GATE, which could go up to 200,000 rupees per year per student.
Spending on IT education went through roof, crossing one trillion rupees
Indian students continue to go abroad for higher education, many of them in IT or allied courses. A specific number on how many go for IT education alone is difficult to gather, but it would be safe to assume that the majority of them do. Overall, 770,000 Indian students studied abroad in 2019, and the number was projected to hit 1.8 million in 2024. By that year, Indian families likely spent $75–85 billion annually on international education, with IT and computer science among the most popular fields. Putting this data together, it would be safe to estimate that Indian parents cumulatively spend around ₹60,000–1,00,000 crore (yes, one trillion rupees) on overseas IT education.
The biggest contributors to this outflow are families from higher-income states like Punjab, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh.
Total annual estimate of IT education - combiing domestic, overseas, coaching and upskilling - is between ₹1.3 trillion to 2.1 trillion rupees.
Indian IT firings: A wake-up call for parents and students
The outcomes no longer match the investment on education, especially in the IT sector.
Many private colleges charge high fees, but their graduates face job uncertainty due to limited AI skills, a decline in legacy IT roles, and a shift towards leaner, AI-first IT teams both in India and abroad.
The quality of IT education in many institutions is also not aligned with current industry needs. This leads many IT graduates to spend even more money on certifications post-graduation, and many years into their jobs.
Reassess your return on investment before opting for IT education
Parents considering heavy investments in IT education, whether for domestic degrees, foreign universities, or coaching, must factor in the shifting job landscape, where
AI is redefining demand. Jobs that were once seen as 'stable' are fast drying up now. India's spending boom, facilitated by IT jobs since the 1990s, may be on its way out, unless both the government and the education system adapt fast to the technologies of the future, mainly driven by AI. An overhaul of the curriculum, upskilling of teachers, and a change in course offerings to match present-day industry needs are the order of the day. Till that happens, considering software engineering education as a 'safe bet' might prove to be risky.
