Srinagar, July 10 -- By Rizqiyah Yusrinawati

Minutes before class in Srinagar, Ahmad was filling out an application for an Islamic university in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Tuition fees and scholarship deadlines were already committed to memory.

By the time the lecture began, his mind was fixed on a campus nearly 6,000 kilometers away.

"I still want to study abroad one day," said Ahmad, a first-year university student. "Right now, my parents feel it's simply too far away."

His story surfaced again and again during interviews with students, recent graduates, education counsellors and university teachers across Kashmir.

Young people here still dream about studying overseas. They spend months comparing universities, reading scholarship rules...