What is a realistic payback period for an MS abroad?

What the formula does and does not do

It divides total programme cost by the annual gain over an ₹8.0 lakh/year Indian baseline role. That is a deliberately simple calculation and we publish it rather than hiding it inside a proprietary "ROI score".

Three things it leaves out, all of which make the real number worse: loan interest (a ₹50L loan at around 10.5% over 10 years costs far more than ₹50L), income tax in the destination country, and the possibility that you do not get the typical salary — or any salary abroad — at all. A payback of 1.5 years on this formula is not 18 months to break even in real life.

Why the spread between programmes matters more than the average

Georgia Institute of Technology pays back in about 0.5 years on this formula; UNSW Sydney takes about 2.4 years. Both are respectable universities that a consultant might put on the same shortlist. The gap comes from ₹61.9 lakh of extra cost meeting a lower salary band.

The practical use of a payback number is not to decide whether to go. It is to notice when two options being presented as equivalent are financially nothing alike.

Verify these numbers yourself

• Cost, admission-bar and salary-basis figures for all 14 verified programs: truthpathms.com/data (CC BY 4.0, each row carries its own sources and check date)
• Payback method: total cost ÷ (typical starting salary − ₹8.0 lakh/year India baseline). Ignores loan interest, taxes and the risk of not landing the typical salary — disclosed, not hidden
• Salary bands: Glassdoor / Indeed / PayScale / ZipRecruiter, accessed July 2026 — role-and-country bands, not per-university outcomes

Costs, salaries, and visa rules change - always confirm against the official program page before making a real decision. TruthPathMS aggregates and cites; it does not originate tuition, salary, or visa data.