Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify challenges for management education in India and explain their nature, significance and interrelations using total interpretive structural modelling (TISM), an innovative version of Warfield's interpretive structural modelling (ISM). Design/methodology/approach: The challenges have been drawn from literature and validated by an empirical study conducted through questionnaires administered electronically and personally to 250 management graduates. TISM has been applied to 14 finalised factors. Findings: All the identified factors, except accreditation, were found to be important. Ineffective regulatory bodies and ineffective leadership emerged as the biggest roadblocks. Several significant interrelations were found which were sometimes not revealed by plain observation. Originality/value: The existing literature has discussed the challenges for management education but not their interrelations. This paper uses TISM to demonstrate the relationships between different challenges and to explain the logic behind the relationships. The results would be useful for the owners (or managers) of management institutes faced with the same challenges.