India’s higher education: A broken promise

There is a quiet crisis in higher education in India that runs deep. The educational opportunities for school-leavers are simply not enough, and those that exist are not good enough. The pockets of excellence are outcomes of the enormous reservoir of talent and Darwinian selection processes. It does little for those with average abilities or without social opportunities. The challenges confronting higher education in India are clear. It needs a massive expansion to educate much larger numbers, but without diluting academic standards.

It is just as important to raise the average quality. What is more, in terms of access, higher education in India needs to be far more inclusive. And, it needs some institutions, each with a certain critical mass, that are exemplars of excellence at par with the best in the world. Such excellence is largely missing in India, while it is diminishing rapidly in the few pockets where it existed. Indeed, in terms of world university rankings, which have become the fashion in recent years, our performance is poor. For those who set high standards, it borders on the dismal.

QS University Rankings 2025 reveal the geographical country-composition of the top 100 universities in the world: the United States (26), Western Europe (18), the United Kingdom (16), Australia (8), Hong Kong (6), South Korea (5), Japan (4), China (4), Singapore (2), Malaysia (1), and Taiwan (1). Thus, 72 were in the Western world, including Australia, but there were as many as 23 in Asia. India had none.

Of course, it must be said that these rankings have all the limitations of composite index numbers, since it is difficult to measure qualitative attributes while weights assigned to different components shape results. Even so, it is obvious that our universities have miles to go before reaching world standards. Islands of excellence – IITs, IIMs, or the IISc – are no consolation. Successive governments have sought to multiply the number of IITs and IIMs, but the inevitable outcome is highly uneven quality and a dilution of the brand equity of existing institutions that have already attained academic excellence. More importantly, the lifeblood of higher education is not small elite institutes but large universities providing educational opportunities for young people.

The comparative advantage that India had, at least in a few of its universities, has been slowly, yet surely, squandered over time. And, sadly, even the little that remains is being progressively undermined by the growing intrusion of politics in universities. But that is not all. Systematic and mindless under-resourcing of public higher education is also a reason for the steady regression in the quality of universities.

The situation is much worse than it was just one decade ago. Universities have deteriorated rapidly in India, while universities elsewhere in the developing world, particularly in Asia and even more so in China, have made significant progress. There is an obvious danger. Unless we introduce correctives, the situation might worsen further to transform us from erstwhile leaders into laggards, or worse.

Student outflow

There is intense competition among students for admissions to public universities with a semblance of standards and reputations, despite the divergence in quality. The fortunate few, who do well enough in the Class 12 examinations, take up these limited places, while most, the less fortunate, make do with institutions in the private sector, where fees are always higher and, apart from a few exceptions, quality is mostly poor. Of course, quality is uneven both in public institutions and the private sector. But exceptions to these generalisations simply prove the rule. Only the privileged few have parents rich enough to send them abroad instead.

During the past 25 years, the number of students from India going abroad for higher education increased rapidly from roughly 50,000 in 2000 to 200,000 in 2010 and 350,000 in 2015. This number climbed to 600,000 in 2019, which was the last year before the Coronavirus pandemic that shut down universities across the world. It rose further to 900,000 in 2023. It is estimated that in 2023, of the students going abroad to study, 30% went to the US, 25% went to Canada, 20% went to the UK, while 10% went to Australia and New Zealand.

If we assume that their average expenditure on fees and maintenance is $30,000 per student per annum, in 2023, Indian students overseas spent $27 billion, which is about the same as India’s foreign exchange earnings from tourism in 2023. However, annual expenses on fees and maintenance in rich countries are likely to be much higher, so the costs would be proportionately higher.

These sums, if made available for higher education in India, could help transform at least some universities. But that is not all. A large proportion of students – around 75% – who go abroad for higher education do not return to India. The number of foreign students at universities in India, even from South Asian countries, is also much diminished, as compared with the past.

Our higher education is caught in a pincer movement. For one, there is a belief that markets can solve the problem through private players, which is leading to education as business, shutting the door on large numbers who cannot finance themselves, without regulation that would ensure quality. This is no solution.

For another, governments that believe in the magic of markets are virtual control freaks with respect to public universities. This is motivated by the desire to exercise political influence in higher education for patronage, ideology, rents, or vested interests. This is a big problem. Unless we introduce correctives here and now, we will mortgage the future of young India and stifle our aspirations for a developed India.

(The writer, an economist, is
Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University and former vice chancellor, University of Delhi)