Priya moved to Melbourne nine years ago, and her son Arjun just turned five. Her in-laws in Pune keep asking when she'll start a savings plan for his education, and her instinct is to open something small now and add to it later.

What she hasn't worked out yet is the one number that actually matters: is she saving for a degree in India, or one in Australia? Those two goals aren't close to the same size, and the gap between them is the real decision hiding behind what sounds like a simple savings question.

Get that target wrong now, and no amount of discipline over the next 13 years will fix it later. The choice isn't really about which investment product to pick first. It's about which cost you're actually planning for. 

A degree finished in India and one finished in Australia can differ by a factor of five or more, and most parents never make that choice explicit before they start investing.

How Much Does a Good Degree Actually Cost in India Versus Australia?

For the sake of working with real numbers, assume a strong private engineering degree at a well-regarded Indian college runs somewhere between ₹8 lakh and ₹25 lakh for the full four years, tuition included.

Now assume the same four years of an engineering or similar professional degree in Australia, once tuition and basic living costs for an international student are added in. That figure lands somewhere between ₹80 lakh and ₹1.5 crore.

Actual fees vary widely by college, course, and city, so treat these as planning assumptions rather than a quote for any specific institution. Even so, the gap between the two is the difference between a manageable goal and a genuinely large one.

So How Much Should You Actually Be Setting Aside Each Month?

Run the math on Arjun's 13 years until he turns 18, using the same planning assumptions. Saving around ₹10,000 a month, growing at an assumed 10% a year, works out to roughly ₹32 lakh by the time he finishes school, comfortably covering the assumed India cost, with room to spare.

Keeping the Australia option genuinely open takes a bigger commitment: a monthly figure closer to ₹25,000, which at the same assumed growth rate works out to roughly ₹80 lakh by the same point, the lower end of the assumed Australia cost.

Neither the return nor the cost figures are guaranteed. They simply give you a working number to plan against, rather than a guess.

Which Savings Options Are Actually Open to You as an NRI in Australia?

Fewer than most people expect. Several popular government-backed savings schemes that resident Indian families use for a child's future are restricted to resident accounts, and they simply aren't available once your address is in Australia instead of India.

Which raises the real question: Why NRIs Must Invest in Child Plans in India? The answer comes down to what's actually available to them: mainly mutual funds and unit-linked insurance plans, not the resident-only government schemes their relatives might be using.

Both can be funded through an NRE or NRO account, and both let you invest in Indian markets while living anywhere in the world.

Does a ULIP Actually Make Sense Here, or Is It Just a Sales Pitch?

It can make sense, provided you understand exactly what you're buying. A ULIP combines a small life-cover component with a market-linked investment, comes with a mandatory five-year lock-in set by the insurance regulator, and carries fund management charges capped at 1.35% a year.

You can switch between equity- and debt-oriented funds within the same policy as your goal gets closer. A plain mutual fund folio doesn't offer that same flexibility. The trade-off is that ULIPs also carry insurance-related charges on top of fund charges, so similar money in a low-cost index fund could grow somewhat faster given similar market performance, though it wouldn't carry the life cover.

A ULIP for NRI in Australia works largely the same way it does for any other NRI: eligibility is based on age and NRI status, and the paperwork is the standard set: a passport and an Australian visa or residency proof. Premiums are usually payable from an NRE or NRO account, or through a direct international transfer converted to rupees.

What's worth checking specifically is whether the child-focused ULIP includes a waiver of future premiums if something happens to the parent. That single feature is really the point of buying a child plan through insurance rather than through a plain investment fund. It's what a mutual fund can't replicate.

Who Should Not Lock Into a Single Plan Right Now?

• Anyone whose income isn't yet stable shouldn't commit to a large monthly ULIP premium they might struggle to sustain for the full term. Stopping early usually means losing value to charges with little to show for it.
• A parent fairly certain their child will study in India can save a smaller, steadier amount instead of sizing their goal for an Australian degree.
• Someone who already holds adequate life cover elsewhere should think carefully about whether they need the insurance component a ULIP bundles in, or whether a plain investment account does the same job at a lower cost.
  
  

What Should You Do Next?

Decide the real target first. Pick, honestly, whether you're planning for an Indian degree, an Australian one, or a middle path where you save for India but keep the door open.

Once that number is fixed, work backward into a monthly figure you can actually sustain for the next 13 years. A plan abandoned in year six helps Arjun a lot less than a smaller plan followed through to the end.