Author: Suman Negi
Publisher: GRFDT
Efforts of the government to Universalize School Education have resulted in an increased demand for Higher
Education on a large scale today. An outcome of which is very clearly visible in the large number of colleges
and universities that have come up in the recent years. Students also move from one place to another to seek this
education, evident in statistics pertaining to migration flows, where ‘Education as a Reason to Migrate’ comes
out an important reason for one to migrate out from the place of residence to new place. The focus of research on
Migration of people has been mainly centered around economic causes and its outcomes. Education none the less
is regarded as one of the main determinants of wages that one receives at both the source and the destination, but
education as a reason to migrate has garnered negligible focus as far as research on migration is concerned. None
the less it also forms a very important aspect of migration studies especially of the population below 25 years
of age, as Educational Migration may pave the way to other forms of migration mainly economic, especially
after the student has completed his/her studies at the current destination. Therefore it can also be suggested that
educational migration as a prime mover precedes or leads to an economic cause in many cases as a student starts
working at the place where he was studying. Although this may depend on external factors of opportunity and
other related factors. This paper explores insights into such migration flows and tries to identify the causes that
spur one to move out of one’s native place for seeking education and implications of such a type of migration on
the state of Himachal Pradesh. A case study of two districts has been undertaken to have an in-depth understanding
of such migration processes.