The economics of college cut-offs

I’m no economist, but there were two curious pieces of data that aroused the economics enthusiast in me this month. As many parents would know, Delhi University’s (DU) entrance cut-offs have literally gone through the roof, hitting as high as a perfect 100% for some courses, and leaving many young dreams in the mud.

And yet, on the other hand, there was a distressing report about struggling engineering colleges. Over 600 colleges have reduced their intake this year, according to authorities, while another 140 had decided to shut down entirely. I know your inner voice is already blaming Covid-19 for this, but the story goes deeper. Many colleges have been cutting intake and shutting down for years. The reason: Lack of demand.

How is it possible that some colleges are able to turn toppers away without a thought, while others struggle to fill up enough seats to even survive?

India’s higher education is a Malthusian nightmare. The country has nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, but only eight universities good enough to be in the top 500 in the world. By contrast, Russia has 17 and Brazil has five. And both of them have fewer people than Uttar Pradesh.

Quality matters. In a country where thousands of college graduates – even technical graduates – have had to queue up to be hired as peons, many now believe that paying to attend a poorly ranked college is just as good as not going to college at all. And that leaves hundreds of colleges empty.

But on the other hand, colleges of repute struggle to meet demand. The rat race is worse for those who wish to pursue the humanities. DU is not even ranked in the top 500 in the world, but it is among the few worthwhile places in India to study economics, history or journalism.

The yawning gap between supply and demand leaves colleges like DU with only two choices: They can either hike fees or hike cut-offs. Demanding exorbitant fees is politically impossible for State-owned universities, so they have instead taken to targeting grades.

Spiralling college cut-offs also present perverse incentives at the school-level and feed into a vicious cycle: Since college cut-offs are astronomical, examination boards across states now compete with each other to award their students progressively higher grades each year. But this simply pushes the cut-offs further and further away.

Alas, when the education sector is reduced to a ruthless marketplace and grades serve as ‘prices’ by which to decide who goes to college, it is learning that suffers. The easiest way to award students higher grades is to water down the syllabus and ask them simpler questions in their exams.

But since the student population only grows each year and quality institutes remain scarcer than water on the moon, this strategy does nothing to give students greater opportunity to access quality universities. If anything, it only dilutes the skills and knowledge that students gain in high school. Parents are now forced to send their children to schools that grade exams more leniently, rather than looking for schools that are harder to pass out of but are more worthwhile to learn in.

The ordeal of the high school student is now truly pitiable. The whole purpose of schooling has been reduced to just one grade sheet. Rather than requiring students to demonstrate a thirst for knowledge, colleges ask them to perfect the art of exam-writing. And the result of all these endeavours: A chance to attend a university that does not even rank in the top 100 in the world.