As 2025 wraps – College Vidya; India’s trusted platform for navigating, comparing, and selecting UGC-approved online and distance education programs has released its Year-End Online Education Trends 2025, mapping what Indians chose to study this year, where demand is coming from, and which specialisations are shaping career ambitions at scale.
Key Highlights (Year-End 2025)
● MBA leads India’s online degree market with 42.52% of all enrollments; the single largest share across programs.
● Tech degrees form 28%+ of India’s online learner base, led by BCA (16.67%) and MCA (11.27%).
● BBA is the fastest-growing UG management degree, rising to 43.87% YoY growth in 2025.
● Doctorate in Business Administration is the biggest breakout trend of 2025, recording an 86.82% YoY jump (despite a smaller market share of 1.86%).
● Delhi leads India’s online learning map with 18.63% contribution, followed by Uttar Pradesh (13.14%) and Bihar (10.49%) highlighting how strongly Tier-2/3 India is shaping demand.
India is choosing degrees that make them employable
The year-end data shows a clear pattern: learners are increasingly choosing degrees aligned with high-demand domains, particularly across technology and business, reflecting how academic choices are evolving with market relevance.
In BCA, the largest specialisation clusters were Cloud Computing & Cybersecurity (30.70%) and Data Analytics (30.18%), followed by Computer Science & IT (15.61%) and ML & AI (12.21%); signalling that students are optimising for real-world hiring pipelines across security, data, and AI-led roles.
In MCA, demand is concentrated in Computer Science & IT (42.16%), ML & AI (25.22%), and Cloud Computing (17.72%), highlighting strong interest in advanced technology degrees.
In BBA, India’s business learners are not picking generic management anymore – Financial Management (40.16%) dominates, with strong interest in Data Analytics (14.44%), Business Analytics (8.66%), Digital Marketing (7.61%), and Project Management (6.82%).
Even in BA, preferences reflect career utility: English accounts for 54.43%, followed by Hindi (18.83%), with meaningful demand for Psychology (6.97%) and Political Science (6.40%).
Learner demand is expanding across states
Year-end trends show that demand for online degrees is spread across multiple regions, with strong participation from both established and emerging education markets.
● Delhi contributes 18.63% of enrollments; the largest single hub.
● Uttar Pradesh (13.14%) and Bihar (10.49%) together contribute nearly a quarter of all enrollments, reinforcing how strongly Tier-2 and Tier-3 India is driving adoption.
● Maharashtra (9.17%) and West Bengal (5.66%) strengthen West and East as fast-growing learner markets.
DBA emerges as the “mid-career power move”
The sharpest spike in the dataset is Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA); growing 86.82% YoY in 2025. College Vidya’s year-end view indicates that working professionals are increasingly choosing short-duration, management-focused doctorates as a credential for leadership acceleration and career leverage.
Rohit Gupta, COO, College Vidya, said: “2025 showed us that India is no longer chasing degrees for their names, but for their outcomes. The rise of MBA, the momentum in BCA and MCA, and the unexpected jump in DBA all point to a workforce that is thinking with precision: What will this degree do for my career? With online education now fully mainstream, learners across India, especially in Tier-2 and Tier-3 regions are making faster, and far more informed choices than ever before.”
