The Indians on the Train from Düren to Jülich

A train from Düren to Jülich. Jülich is a research location — the Forschungszentrum Jülich, one of the largest in Europe. The young women on the train are not tourists. They are engineers, doctoral candidates, researchers. They come from India. That is not coincidence. It is structural change — quiet, profound, without public debate.

I. The Image and What Lies Behind It

Those travelling through German engineering universities and technical research institutions today see a picture that did not look this way ten years ago. The corridors have become more international — but not in the way one might have expected. No longer primarily Chinese, acquiring the knowledge of German engineering education and then returning. Increasingly Indians, enrolling in master’s programmes in engineering sciences — at universities like Zwickau, Chemnitz, Magdeburg, Freiberg, at research centres like Jülich.

At the Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau — Prof. Ziaei’s university, one of the technical universities of applied sciences in the heart of German mechanical engineering — student numbers have fallen sharply in recent years. What keeps the university running is increasingly international students. And among these international students: more and more from India.

That is not the problem. That is the solution — or at least part of it. But it raises questions that Germany has not yet seriously engaged with.

II. The Numbers

The shift is dramatic. Only a few years ago China was the largest country of origin of international students in Germany. Today it is India — with almost 60,000 students and growth of 20 per cent in a single year. The increase over five years amounts to 138 per cent.

What these students study is revealing: 64 per cent of Indian students in Germany are enrolled in engineering sciences — almost twice as many as the average of all international students. 77 per cent study STEM subjects. They study exactly what German students increasingly no longer want to study.

III. Why Germans No Longer Want to Study Engineering

The question is uncomfortable, but it must be asked. Why is demand among German students falling for exactly the subject that was the foundation of German prosperity?

Part of the answer is demographic: fewer young people, fewer students overall. But that does not explain why the decline in mechanical engineering and process engineering is disproportionate — while computer science, psychology and social work are growing.

Another part of the answer is cultural. Engineering has lost social prestige in Germany. The well-paid mechanical engineering graduate securing solid middle-class security at BMW or Bosch is no longer an aspirational image for many young Germans — not because the job is bad, but because the automotive industry is in transformation, because the professional profile is under pressure from digitalisation, because the engineer no longer plays the heroic role in public discourse that he once did.

And a third part of the answer is structural: the handbook barrier — the educational culture that places precision and conformity before creativity — is no longer attractive to a generation that comes from school having internalised self-realisation as a value. Engineering study is considered hard, lengthy, not very creative.

IV. Why Indians Come

The Indian students do not come because they dream of Germany. They come because Germany offers something that has become either too expensive or too uncertain elsewhere. The United States lost massively in attractiveness under Trump — international new enrolments fell by 17 per cent in the first Trump year. The United Kingdom is more expensive and administratively more difficult after Brexit. Australia has tightened its visa policy.

Germany offers: no tuition fees at public universities, English-language master’s programmes, one of the strongest engineering traditions in the world, direct paths to the German labour market — and a shortage of skilled workers that offers excellent career prospects for well-trained engineers.

83 per cent of Indian students arrive in Germany with a bachelor’s degree and enrol in a master’s programme. They are not looking for basic training. They are looking for specialisation in a country that can still provide it — and that needs it afterwards.

V. What This Means for the Universities

For the small technical universities of applied sciences in eastern Germany, the Indian students are not enrichment born of cultural-political conviction — they are the condition of survival. A university like Zwickau with around 3,000 students and 160 professors can maintain its teaching operations, its research projects, its staff only if student numbers do not fall below a minimum size.

Saxony responded early — with campaigns, with English-language programmes, with international recruitment. The result is visible: over 20 per cent of students at Saxon universities come from other federal states, almost a quarter from abroad. Without these numbers, several universities would already have been merged or closed.

VI. What This Means for Germany

Globalisation of knowledge 1.0 was the picture of the 1990s and 2000s: Chinese came, learned, returned, built China’s industry. Germany benefited — through the reputation as an educational location. And China benefited — perhaps more.

Globalisation of knowledge 2.0 is the picture of the 2020s: Indians come, learn — and stay. The retention rate is high. Many work in Germany after their studies, in IT, research, industrial development. The unemployment rate among Indian skilled workers in Germany is low. They fill the shortage of skilled workers — exactly where German school-leavers no longer want to go.

That is not a problem. That is a windfall — as long as Germany treats it as such. As long as integration works, working conditions are fair, social acceptance succeeds. And as long as Germany simultaneously asks why its own young people are avoiding the subject that is the foundation of its prosperity.

VII. The View Toward China — and What It Says About India

There is a historical comparison that gives pause for thought. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Chinese students came to Germany under similar conditions to those of Indians today: Germany offered better salaries, better career prospects, more stable infrastructure. Many stayed — at first. The retention rate was high as long as China could offer them less.

Then China’s economy grew. Salaries rose. Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing became global innovation and economic centres. Leadership positions in Chinese global corporations became more attractive than engineering positions in German provincial towns. The return wave set in. The knowledge that had been passed on at German universities flowed back — and helped build a competitor.

At present it is not attractive or lucrative for Indian graduates to return to India. That was also not the case for Chinese in the beginning. India in 2026 is not China in 1995 — but it is also no longer the India of 2000. The economy is growing at 6 to 7 per cent annually. Bangalore is a global technology centre. Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai have built engineering cultures that can hold their own against German ones.

When the turning point will come is not predictable. In ten years, in twenty. But the structure of the process is known: as long as India offers less than Germany, graduates will stay. When India offers more — in growth, in career opportunities, in home — many will return. That is not a reproach and not a catastrophe. It is a regularity of the knowledge economy.

The question Germany should ask in time: what is it doing to attract its own next generation to engineering professions — before the day comes when the young Indians on the train from Düren to Jülich decide that the train in the other direction is more interesting?

When a country no longer passes on the professions on which its prosperity rests to its own youth — but imports them from outside — it has made a quiet decision about its future. Not through policy. Through culture.