 "Long road for new centres of excellence in India")
Every year, around 200,000 Indian students are admitted to foreign universities and they collectively pay about Rs 15,000 crore in tuition fees. The reasons why such a sizeable number of young people leave the country for studies include fewer seats at the premier institutes in India, proliferation of substandard institutes, and a substantial increase in the size and income of the middle-class.
It is estimated that in the next 10 years, the size of Indian middle class will grow tenfold - from 50 million to 500 million; in the next five years, the number of students seeking higher education will grow from the current 26 million to 40 million. It means that India would need another 600-700 universities to accommodate the additional demand of 14 million students by 2020.
Currently, India has 714 universities and around 40,000 colleges.
"India will outpace China in the next 10 years as the country with the largest tertiary-age population," notes a British Council report released in 2014 on the future of higher education in India. But, despite this huge potential in the realm of education, not many corporate houses are finding it a lucrative business. This is mainly because of shortage of land to build institutes of learning and the fact that education is considered an 'over-regulated' sector in the country.
Many believe education is not a profitable business when it comes to setting up a world-class research institute. For many industrialists and corporate honchos, it is an act of philanthropy, brand building and corporate social responsibility. Rumour has it that industrialist Naveen Jindal decided to set aside a large sum of grants when he was told that he can be India's John Harvard. Jindal gave Rs 600 crore to set up the O P Jindal Global University (JGU) in 2009.
Premji has donated 39 per cent of his stake in the software company to philanthropy. The recently-opened Ashoka University is funded by the doyens of industry such as Genpact founder Pramod Bhasin and Naukri founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani, among others.
At the crossroads
It is still a long road for these philanthropy-backed new varsities, which are vying to be India's answer to Harvard and Columbia. The biggest challenge before them is financial sustenance as they cannot survive purely on the basis of grants and aids in the long run.
The world over, top-ranking institutes are supported by their wealthy alumni, endowment and industry grants. For instance, 30,000 donors and volunteers contribute to the Harvard College Fund each year, according to its website.
JGU says it spends around 20 per cent of its revenue, or Rs 25 crore, on scholarships every year.
Similarly, 85 per cent of all students at SNU are currently receiving some sort of scholarship and financial aid from the university. All doctoral students receive a stipend of Rs 35,000 a month and are exempt from paying tuition fees. But, it is unlikely that the universities will continue to provide the same financial support to its students after a few years.
Six degrees of separation
In January this year, Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy said India should send around 10,000 students to the US for PhDs in science, technology, engineering and math every year over the next 50 years. He said it should be on condition that the students would not be given any employment in the US. They should come back and serve in India for the next 10 years.
Murthy's statement holds true as it is often said that India doesn't produce high-quality researchers and many students opt for ghost writers for their thesis. At the undergraduate level, the fees charged at these new centres are higher than those at other institutes and the salary package offered during the campus placements is average. For instance, a five-year law course at JGU costs Rs 36.25 lakh. When it comes to salary, the lowest remuneration for the 2015 law batch was Rs 12,000 a month and the highest was Rs 1.2 lakh a month. The average salary was Rs 58,000 a month.
At SNU, the highest, lowest and average packages offered were Rs 15 lakh, Rs 3 lakh and Rs 3.48 lakh, respectively. Ashoka students appear to have got better money. The median salary for the one-year postgraduate programme was Rs 9.2 lakh per annum.
Experts say Indian students earn most of their tuition fees while studying abroad. Their degrees are recognised the world over and many prefer to stay back for good salaries and easier access to research funds. The amount remitted back to India is also substantial. For instance, the US was the second-largest contributor to India in terms of remittance ($11.5 billion) after the UAE, which contributed $13.2 billion.
