Business Wire India
Meritto, the company that pioneered the Enrollment Cloud category in India and the country's largest Enterprise Vertical SaaS platform for education, today launched the Enrollment Index 2026. The second edition of India's only unified benchmark for student enrollment, the Index is built on 4.3 crore aggregated and anonymised student inquiries – nearly double the 2.3 crore behind last year's first edition. The Index finds that while demand for higher education remains strong, the mechanics of how students discover, evaluate, and commit to institutions have fundamentally shifted.
AI discovery emerges as the highest-intent channel: For the first time, the Index measures enrollments originating from AI-generated discovery platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini. While GEO contributes a small share of total lead volume today, it converts at 6.11%, roughly 6x the digital channel average of 0.94%. Students who discover institutions through AI platforms arrive with significantly stronger intent than those from conventional digital discovery.
The shift is already visible in institutional traffic: Meritto's analysis of organic search traffic across India's leading public universities found that several institutions saw organic traffic decline by over 37% and one by as much as 49% following the rollout of Google AI Overviews, signalling a steady migration of student search behaviour toward AI-generated answers.
The conversion gap is regional, not national: India's lead-to-enrollment conversion baseline stands at 1.06%, but the variation beneath it tells the real story. Tier 3 states convert at 1.84%, outperforming both Tier 2 (0.99%) and Tier 1 (0.95%). Zonally, North and East India lead at 1.24% each, while Central India trails at 0.61%. Localised, data-driven engagement consistently outperforms broad national marketing.
Volume and conversion are not the same thing: The Index introduces the Channel Efficiency Ratio (CER), which measures every channel against the national baseline. The finding is counterintuitive: the biggest lead generators are rarely the best converters. Publisher and aggregator campaigns collectively contribute the largest share of lead volume but a disproportionately smaller share of actual enrollments. Among paid channels measured, Google stood out as the strongest performer at 1.8x the national conversion baseline.
Re-engagement is the hidden conversion engine: The Index finds that re-inquired leads – students who return after an earlier inquiry – make up just 14% of lead volume but drive 40% of all enrollments, converting at 3.00% versus 0.74% for first-time inquirers. Equally, response speed directly determines outcomes: institutions that respond the same day convert at 2x the rate of those that wait a week.
Commenting on the launch, Naveen Goyal, Founder & CEO of Meritto, said:
"The data this year reflects a clear shift in how enrollment performance is created. The gap between institutions is no longer about who generates the most leads, but who engages and converts intent more effectively after discovery."
He added: "GEO is one of the strongest emerging signals we are seeing. Students discovering institutions through AI platforms arrive with much higher intent, and institutions that become more discoverable in AI-generated environments will build a long-term strategic advantage."
The Enrollment Index 2026 was launched at Meritto Evolve in Pune by Naveen Goyal, Founder & CEO of Meritto; Suraj Sapra, Co-founder & CSO of Meritto; and Dr. Ramakrishnan Raman, Vice Chancellor of Symbiosis University, in the presence of senior leaders from India's higher education sector.
The full report is available at https://www.meritto.com/meritto-enrollment-index-2026/
