Share your story and shine at JK Monitor!🌟 Welcome to JK Monitor, where every story matters and every achievement is celebrated! We invite you to share the remarkable journey of your life and showcase your accomplishments to the world. Join our exclusive interviews that honor exceptional individuals just like you. - One in seven young people in India’s cities is out of work, and employers keep asking for experience. Around 1.25 million students have chosen to study abroad instead.
- Entry-level jobs want experience and experience needs a job. More Indian students are breaking that loop with a master’s abroad says Prodigy Finance
LONDON: Ask a final-year student in India who is interviewing for an internship or a first job what keeps them up at night. Exams rarely come up. What does is the entry-level listing that wants two years of experience from someone who has never had the chance to earn a single one.
That worry shows up in the official data too. According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2025, 9.9% of Indians aged 15 to 29 were unemployed. In cities the figure was 13.6%. For educated persons, meaning anyone with secondary schooling or above, it was 6.5%.
Ask employers and you hear the same story from the other side of the desk. According to the India Skills Report 2026, companies in almost every sector reach first for people with one to five years of experience. Pharmaceuticals and healthcare filled 65% of new roles from that group. Manufacturing gave freshers just 5% of its openings. IT is more welcoming, with 35% of fresher hiring, and that door only opens for graduates headed into tech.
So students are widening the search. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, around 1.25 million Indians were studying abroad as of January 2025.
Many now treat an international postgraduate degree as a long-term investment in their future careers. Prodigy Finance, which has supported international master’s students since 2007, has seen students place growing importance on the quality of education, employability and access to global career opportunities. They are looking for a fair first chance. Some say recruiters overseas notice what it took to get there: a place at a good university, won from a modest background, with nothing handed over. In Prodigy’s 2022 Impact Report, 74% of the 995 graduates surveyed said they had at least doubled their salary after their master’s. Prodigy lends without a cosigner* or collateral, which matters for families with no assets to pledge.
Sonal Kapoor, Global Chief Business Officer at Prodigy Finance, says, “Nobody is pretending the market is easy. What gives us hope is seeing talent from rural and humble backgrounds keep education as the priority, because it changes more than one life. It changes the whole family. Two thirds of the students we have funded were the first in their family to even attempt graduate study. Completing any degree from that starting point is commendable. Doing it overseas says a lot about how far one quality education can take a person.”
For many students, the hardest decision comes before the application. Mariana Allocer, spokesperson at NovaGrad, Prodigy Finance’s study abroad guidance platform, says, “We have been helping students get into top universities for years, and the drive behind almost every one of them is a better career. That is why we try to step in from the very start. One wrong university choice or one wrong course can set a student back years. Having the right guidance early makes all the difference. The goal isn’t simply a bigger name on the degree. It’s the right course at the right university for where a student wants their career to go.”
India's first-job challenge is unlikely to disappear overnight. But for a generation unwilling to let a lack of experience define its potential, the search for opportunity is becoming increasingly global. For some, the first step towards a career may begin far beyond India's borders."
About Prodigy Finance:
Founded in 2007, Prodigy Finance is an international student lender that has helped over 47,000+ international master's students attend the world's top universities. To date, Prodigy has disbursed over $2.6 billion in funding to students from more than 150 countries. Prodigy Finance is fueled by impact investors and other privately qualified entities who invest in tomorrow's leaders while earning a financial and social return. Prodigy's borderless lending model enables students to apply for a loan based on their future earning potential and not just their current circumstances and credit history.
About NovaGrad
Built by Prodigy Finance, NovaGrad combines data, expertise in the field, and AI to make studying abroad simpler, smarter, and stress-free. With Prodigy Finance’s long experience supporting international students, we focus on providing clear information, realistic expectations, and step-by-step guidance for every international student.
NovaGrad is your starting point for the study abroad journey: a place to check where you qualify, explore universities and scholarships, and turn a big study-abroad dream into a practical plan you can actually follow. From your first search to your final shortlist, we’re designed for your next step
*Prodigy Finance Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom.
*Loan offers are subject to our eligibility, funding, and credit assessment criteria.
*12.69% APR representative variable, based on a total credit amount of USD 40,000 repayable over 180 months at a variable interest rate of 11.61% (7.70% fixed + 3.91% variable). Administration fee: USD 1,680 (4.2% of the amount borrowed), added to the loan on disbursement and repayable with interest over the term. Processing fee: USD 500, payable before the loan is advanced. Initial monthly repayments of USD 100 (30 Months). Subsequent monthly repayments of USD 596.71 (180 Months). Total interest payable USD 68,728.18. Total amount payable USD 110,408.18.
