Higher Education in USA and India, a Perspective

India has a magnanimous legacy of education and academicians. Indian Higher Education is looked up to as one of the largest educational systems in the world in terms of number of institutions and student enrollment. It indeed is creditable but still there is a lot to achieve in terms of quality and excellence. Let’s take a look at the current scenario and statistics.
The Indian Higher Education has over 31,000 institutes which include 42 Central universities, 130 Deemed Universities, 37 Institutions of National Importance, 5 institutions established under state legislations, 73 State Private Universities, 261 State Universities, over 31,000 Affiliated Colleges.

Though 13.6 million students are undergoing higher education in our country, India’s Gross Enrollment Ratio (GRE) is 12%, significantly lower than the global average of 26%. The percentage of other countries in 2007 is as follows- USA 82%, Russia 75%, China 23% and the Global average is 26%. The GERs in rural areas have been much lower than total GERs, which are rising steadily and are expected to reach 12.84% by 2020.
Currently over 6.1 million women are enrolled in Higher Education. This number is expected to grow to 12.14 million in 2020, with large number of enrolments. Current spend on Higher Education in India is nearly INR 46,200 crores, 8% comes from Public Institutions and 92% from Private Institutions. This spend is projected to reach phenomenal INR 155,015 crores by 2020.
However, to create the additional capacity considering the target GER of 20% and taking into account prescribed infrastructure for educational institutes, the required investment in Higher Education during the period 2010-2020 is INR 360,640 crores. Huge increase in the expenditure both by the Government and the private sector, is necessary.
It is absolutely essential to create a favourable climate for attracting investment in education from both private and domestic players and overseas sources. The indications are positive. The Central Government’s proposed expenditure in 2009-10 is substantially higher than 2008-2009. The focus is on setting up institutions of Academic Excellence and to commit large funds to Higher Education sector. Hon. Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister for HRD Government of India has declared that he wants to increase this GER from 12 to 30 by 2020.
Despite having one of the largest Higher Education systems in the world, very few Indian educational institutes are ranked as world class, due to the lack of the suitable number of institutions and world class faculty.
Recently we had the opportunity of visiting some of the top US Universities, in order to observe, study and analyze their educational system, quality of education and methods and methodologies. We had meetings with Ms. Martha Kanter, Under Secretary, Department of Education, USA.

The warmth and informal attitude in the Ministry of Education, USA was remarkable. Martha Kanter convened a meeting with a team of experts handling various areas in Secondary and Higher Secondary Education. The passion and dynamism of these experts irrespective of their ages which ranged from 40 to almost 75 years, was very inspiring. Though we represented a Deemed University in India, all these Government officials in the US Education Ministry did not hesitate to share as much information with us as they would share with any Government Officials from our country. It was as amazing as enlightening.
During the meeting, the Secretary of Education, USA (equivalent to Minister of HRD, Government of India) casually joined in without prior appointment to share his invaluable inputs. Though the GER of USA is much higher than most countries, the Government is still keen to raise it further. They are worried about the fact that though students join the Higher Education system in large numbers, very less number of them really complete graduation and become employable.
Their problems invariably are different from ours. Students are self funded. Parents do not pay for the education of their children so they are forced to earn while learning. In this bargain some drop out of the college and hence the Government is looking at increasing the federal funding for students for pursuing their Higher Education. Significantly, a student who may wish to pursue Higher Education in a private University can also avail of the federal funding. It is truly significant, for in India, private or self financed Universities receive no grants from the Government.
In USA, faculty teaching in private Universities like MIT and Harvard are eligible for research and other grants from the Government. The government is focused on giving grants to good research projects. A large amount of funding to almost all universities comes from research grants and endowments and very less amount from student’s tuition fees. The ratio is 20% funding from tuition fees and almost 80% from grants.
We also had the opportunity to visit some top Universities like John Hopkins University, IUPUI, University UC Davis and Stanford University.
John Hopkins University is the largest research University in the USA where faculty and students spend extensive time in research. In fact teaching happens more in laboratories than in classrooms. John Hopkins has a lot of research collaborations with Indian Universities including B J Medical College and Chest Research Foundation in Pune.
Indiana University –Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) is an excellent example of the two top US Universities collaborating to form one comprehensive University on a common campus of IUPUI. Indiana University in Indianapolis and Purdue University on the outskirts of Indianapolis are amongst large land grant Universities in the USA. In fact Purdue University is very popular among Indian students. Neil Armstrong was a Purdue University student. A fact that will make us proud is that this collaborated University has an Indian Vice Chancellor Dr. Uday Sukhatme who hails from Pune.

Programmes of both Indiana and Purdue are conducted on this campus. Faculty interaction and student interaction is facilitated on a large scale and hence the best faculties of both the Universities are drawn to the IUPUI. Students who pass out get degrees of either Indiana University or Purdue University and not of IUPUI.
We always talk about collaboration between Indian and foreign Universities. Can two top Indian Universities come together and collaborate for a better educational future? The insight we got from the IUPUI is that the confluence of the best faculty, research and practices of two prestigious Universities can be of immense benefit to students and in a broader value for knowledge production.
Can a public and a private University in India collaborate? The professionalism of a private University and the research and well equipped laboratory infrastructure of a Public University can be an excellent example of a Private Public Partnership model in India. So instead of creating new Universities or world class Universities the Ministry of HRD should think of encouraging Private Public Partnership between Indian Universities .This will not only evolve as a good initiative but will also save resources which could be directed towards research grants and any such activities.
Stanford University, an epitome of excellence in international education, is a dream of the academicians. It is a Private Ivy League University, always ranked in the top 2 Universities in the world. The competition is always between Harvard and Stanford.
A Private University on 9000 acres of land is unbelievable. In addition to the visiting Departments such as Medicine, Technology etc, the other remarkable thing at Stanford was the Technology Park. It is rightly said that all great companies of the world are born in Stanford. The Stanford Technology Park bears testimony to this. Name a famous company and you will find its Research and Development head quarters on the Stanford Campus.
Spread over hundreds of acres this Technology Park houses the R&D centres of renowned companies like HP, Vairant Technology and Face Book. One of the professors told me that professors at Stanford don’t want Face Book on campus because of its thousands of young employees who commute by car every day to the company and this is disturbing to the overall ambience of the Stanford campus. The Technology Park buildings are owned by Stanford and are rented out to these new companies. They are allowed to remain on campus for a period of 5 to 8 years and then once they are successful they are asked to shift out.
Most Stanford professors are on the Board of Directors of these companies and therefore research students working with these professors get a rare opportunity to research in these companies. What a wonderful example of Industry Academia Relationship. What an irony it is that in India where research laboratories are very far from the Universities. Imagine the National Chemical Laboratory being a part of the Pune University campus or a R&D centre of Philips or Bajaj being on the campus of an Engineering College.
Industry Academia partnership in our country is limited to inviting people from the Industry as visiting faculty but true Industry Academia partnership springs from the interactive and co-operative working of students, professors and industry professionals to generate knowledge in Research laboratories.
Another unique feature of Stanford is the strategic location of their schools. The School of Medicine is located in close proximity to the Engineering/Technology School and the School of Physical Sciences (Physics, Chemistry and Biology). So not only physical interaction but interaction of minds between students of medicine and engineering is possible, which generally does not happen in classrooms or laboratories but in cafeterias and recreation centres. Such interaction of minds leads to the creation of Nobel Laureates. Stanford campus boasts of over 30 Nobel laureates residing on the campus and imparting their excellence in classrooms and laboratories. Can Indian Higher Education take inspiration from this and think of generating new ideas, knowledge and may be at least one Nobel laureate on the campus of an Indian University??????