Higher education: expansion and quality

India has one of the world's largest higher education systems, with more than a thousand universities and tens of thousands of colleges, enrolling tens of millions of students. Expansion has been rapid since independence, when there were only a few dozen universities, and it accelerated after 2000 with private universities and colleges. The gross enrolment ratio in higher education — the share of the 18-23 age group enrolled — is under a third, well below developed countries, and the National Education Policy, 2020, sets a target of 50 per cent by 2035.

The system is highly varied. At the top are the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and a few central universities with strong research and global recognition. Below them are hundreds of state universities and affiliated colleges that teach most students with limited funds, large classes and little research. Regulation has been fragmented across bodies such as the University Grants Commission, set up in 1956, the All India Council for Technical Education and the Medical Council's successor, the National Medical Commission, and the NEP proposes a single umbrella regulator, the Higher Education Commission of India, which remains a proposal rather than a reality.

Three problems dominate debate. First, access is uneven: students from poorer families, rural areas and disadvantaged communities are under-represented in the best institutions, despite reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in public institutions. Second, quality is uneven: many colleges lack qualified faculty, laboratories and libraries, and degrees do not reliably signal skills to employers. Third, research output is concentrated in a few institutions, while most colleges are teaching-only.

The policy direction is toward autonomy with accountability: graded autonomy for good colleges, a four-year multidisciplinary undergraduate degree with multiple entry and exit points under NEP 2020, and more vocational and online options. The open question is whether expansion and quality can rise together. Adding seats is easy; building faculty, laboratories and academic standards is slow, and the gap between the two is where most students experience the system.