UGC new guidelines make psychology degrees in distance mode: How and what's next for students

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently made an announcement that the psychology degrees obtained through the distance and online modes of studies are deemed invalid. The decree will impact almost 1.3 lakh students who are pursuing or have pursued BA, BSc, MA, and MSc in psychology courses in distance education. It was a month ago when UGC issued this announcement, and ever since, the commission has received dozens of complaints and queries from students and institutions.

The ruling ensures that the universities can no longer put psychology under distance or online courses, and the degrees taken through the mediums will be useless from the academic year starting July-August 2025. Admission to the courses has also been stopped for this year. The ruling affects not just current students but also students who plan to pursue higher studies or get jobs under the umbrella of psychology.

Why prohibition of distance psychology degrees

The UGC move comes in sync with the passing of the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions (NCAHP) Act, 2021, under which allied health sciences have been brought under one integrated statutory framework. NCAHP now governs disciplines such as psychology, behavioural health sciences, microbiology, food and nutrition science, biotechnology, and clinical nutrition and dietetics.

Prior to the establishment of the NCAHP, allied health sciences as a profession were hardly regulated in most of the states. It had created lack of standardization of curriculum and quality and pseudo colleges and phony regulatory bodies. To redeem itself, the NCAHP had developed model curricula and taken the onus for regulation of 10 allied health professions, i.e., psychology and allied behaviour health professions.

In response to this amendment, the UGC Distance Education Bureau (DEB) withdrew its approval for allied health science courses by online and distance education mode, which included psychology. The same was made legal in the 592nd meeting of UGC on July 23, 2025.

Impact on students and institutions

This withdrawal of recognition impacts most programmes taught in Indian universities. There are 57 universities running undergraduate and postgraduate psychology courses via distance mode, including 36 state universities, 11 state open universities, five private universities, three deemed-to-be universities, and two central universities such as Delhi University and Mizoram University.

The programmes are popular, and the number of universities providing the programmes has increased exponentially from 17 in 2020-21 to 57 in 2024-25. Telangana and Tamil Nadu lead the pack with the largest number of universities providing distance psychology degrees.

Universities must be barred from enrolling students in such courses from the July-August 2025 session and onwards. All such qualifications thus obtained through distance learning psychology courses henceforth will remain invalid, making the higher studies of thousands of already enrolled or prospective students suspect.

Next steps and subsequent developments

UGC has directed all the HEIs to strictly follow the new guidelines. The commission even approached the Ministry of Education and sought reconsideration of approval of psychology courses under distance learning, but nothing has been done in this regard so far.

The NCAHP still oversees the allied health sciences profession, setting curricula and standards for the statutory professions. Those who did psychology degrees through distance learning prior to the ban still suffer as much as with further education and employment, since the validity of their qualifications can now be questioned.

They and institutions are waiting for more information on transitional arrangements or other pathways, but in the meantime the prohibition on psychology degrees by distance learning continues.