Upskilling 2.0: Edtechs partner with top universities for joint degrees amid sluggish hiring trends

Mumbai: Indian upskilling startups are reshaping the online education landscape, shifting from standalone courses to co-branded degrees with prestigious domestic and global institutions.

These online degrees are designed in high-demand fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data science, and other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. 

They also offer bachelor's and master's degrees in fields like commerce and arts.

Upskilling edtech firms like PhysicsWallah and Simplilearn have either launched a pilot into the segment or are planning to do so in the coming fiscal while existing players are strengthening their offerings.

Physics Wallah Pvt. Ltd's PW Skills, which initially introduced PW Institute of Innovation (PW IOI), a four-year residential programme in computer science, has now started rolling out programmes in partnership with colleges such as IIM Sirmaur and IIT Patna, and other universities such as Lovely Professional University, Jain University, and Manipal University.

While the company's official website shows that these courses are open for admission, PhysicsWallah declined to comment on the subject.

Simplilearn, on the other hand, has built a team to start forging new relationships with universities in India and abroad to offer long-term online degrees. 

The company, which only offers certification programmes and short-term courses, plans to start offering online degrees in 2025, focusing on the Indian market.

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"In our country, we don't have enough universities to cater to our entire population. In most countries, including the US, there are hundreds of online universities that do not have a physical campus. In the long haul, it makes sense, and we see the market going in that direction," Krishna Kumar, founder and chief executive, Simplilearn, told Mint.

They are not alone.

Growth highway

UpGrad, founded in 2015, pioneered some of India’s first co-branded blended programmes in 2020 through partnerships with OP Jindal Global University and Jamia Hamdard. This came right after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman allowed India's top 100 universities to offer fully online degree programmes to ensure continued education during the lockdown.

According to Mayank Kumar, co-founder of upskilling unicorn upGrad, such co-branded degrees now make up for nearly half of the company's student enrolments. He added that the degrees product line is growing faster than the certifications business that the company initially started with.

“We enrol about 150,000 students annually, with 60,000 to 70,000 of those being online degree enrolments, and that segment is growing rapidly—around 30-50% year-on-year, even at this scale,” Kumar told Mint.

Upskilling slowdown

Globally, upskilling demand tends to be counter-cyclical, with more employees pursuing it during economic downturns. In India, however, this pattern has reversed.

There is a slowdown in upskilling growth in India amid weak hiring trends, limited high-paying job opportunities and the widespread industry approach to cut marketing expenditure to prioritize profitability.

Employment growth in the corporate sector slowed to 1.5% in 2023-24, down from 5.7% in 2022-23, according to an August report by Bank of Baroda. 

The report said only 90,840 new jobs were created in the fiscal, a significant drop from 333,000 in the previous fiscal.

Also read: Recruiters hunt for jobs as hiring boom fizzles

In an interview last week, Great Learning founder Mohan Lakhamraju told Mint that the company expects flatlined demand from professional learning courses in India in 2024-25.

Lakhamraju’s Great Learning, which offers online degrees in association with Deakin University and Northernwestern School of Professional Studies, is also doubling down on its partnerships with other reputed institutions like Johns Hopkins, Duke University, and IIT Bombay to explore programmes and degrees going forward.

He added that the biggest challenge in offering degrees in association with reputable colleges is that they can be expensive.

The fees for co-branded degrees offered by PhysicsWallah, upGrad, and Eruditus vary significantly, depending on the course type, duration, and partnering institutions. According to their websites, PhysicsWallah charges between ₹40,000 and ₹1.5 lakh, Eruditus fees can go up to ₹9 lakh, while upGrad's fees can reach as high as ₹25 lakh.

PhysicsWallah's M.Sc. in Data Science with Chandigarh University offers 24 months of live classes and campus immersion for ₹90,000. Meanwhile, upGrad's Doctor of Business Administration from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, is a 36-month programme costing ₹25,00,000. All these companies provide flexible payment options like equated monthly instalments to learners.

Great Learning is also attempting to link online degrees at international universities with foreign programmes to make such courses more appealing for learners.

“Of course, we have to ensure that it works for the universities as well,” he added.

Edtech meets academia

Universities in India are often cash-strapped, looking for additional revenue streams, and are slow to adopt new technologies, while edtech platforms focus on industry-aligned skills. Meanwhile, students seek job-relevant skills but still demand formal degrees, Suchindra Kumar, partner and sector expert for education at PwC told Mint.

Online degrees create a symbiotic relationship, with universities partnering with edtech platforms to offer industry-aligned content alongside formal degrees, boosting revenue for both, he added.

According to Narayanan Ramaswamy, partner and head of the Education and Skill Development Practice at KPMG in India, partnering with existing universities provides these e-learning providers with a certain standing in the formal education sector.

"I also expect that these e-learning providers will have alliances and, in some cases, even acquisitions. They also have to ensure that the students can have a larger play and continue with their higher studies beyond the immediate online course," he added.

Job guarantee takes a backseat

The sluggish employment market has impacted the growing demand for job-guaranteeing upskilling programmes, triggered by the initial allure of high-paying roles in 2021.

UpGrad's Kumar believes that companies centred exclusively on job placement will eventually need to expand into offering degrees, as scaling purely through job opportunities is difficult without direct control over employment.

In June, Mint reported that Simplilearn, which previously offered job guarantee programmes, discontinued the initiative after enrolling 900 learners but managed to place only 271 due to a weakening job market.

In April, India Quotient-backed pay-after-placement startup Masai School clocked in cash positivity after adding IIT courses. News reports said that the company aimed to increase the pie of revenue from this segment to nearly half in the next few years.