NEARLY HALF of the Indian students pursuing higher education in the US are spread over six American states — New York, California, Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts and Arizona, which host 12 higher educational institutions in the top 100 in the latest round of QS rankings, show data obtained from Open Doors reports.In 2021, the largest cohort of Indian students was in New York (22,279), followed by California (20,106), Texas (19,382) Massachusetts (16,407), Illinois (12,209) and Arizona (8,345). This forms 49.56 per cent of the 199,182 Indian students pursuing higher education in the US.A comparative analysis shows that these states are a huge draw for students from China as well, registering the presence of 55 per cent of the country’s students enrolled in higher education courses in the US in 2022. India and China collectively account for 52 per cent of all international students in the US.While the Open Doors reports do not explain the pull factors that draw students to these states, the global QS rankings provide some clues. They are home to some of the best universities in the world, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which has been the top-ranked higher educational institution in the rankings over the past 11 years.New York has three universities placed in the top 100: New York University (39), Columbia University (22) and Cornell University (20). California has three, as well: University of California, San Diego (55), University of California, Los Angeles (44), University of California, Berkeley (27).While the University of Texas, Austin, is ranked 72 by QS, the University of Texas, Dallas, and Texas A&M University host the majority of overseas students, the reports show.Over the past two days, The Indian Express reported other key findings from a comparative analysis of Open Doors data. Students from India are more likely to stay back in the US after their degree, than those from China, and sign up for the Optional Practical Training programme that allows foreign graduates with student visas to join paid or voluntary work for up to three years. And, programmes in mathematics and computer sciences have overtaken engineering as the most popular draw for Indian students headed to the US for higher education.The relatively smaller Kentucky also stands out among the states preferred. Although the data currently shows 4,570 Indian students there, Indians account for 51.4 per cent of all the foreign-origin students in the state. In contrast, students from China account for only 8.3 per cent of all international students in this state.Arizona and New Jersey rank second in terms of share of Indians in the total number of foreign-origin students. In both the states, Indians account for 32.5 per cent each of the total foreign student population.More than half of Arizona’s 8,891 foreign students were enrolled at Campbellsville University (not ranked in QS), University of Kentucky-Lexington (ranked 701-750), and University of Louisville (ranked 801-1000). And, the data show, around 32 per cent of students in New Jersey attended Rutgers University-New Brunswick, which is known for its Computer and Information Science program.The proportion of Chinese students in these states stand at 27.9 per cent and 34.1 per cent, respectively.Open Doors reports are prepared based on surveys of international exchange activity in the US by the US Department of State and the non-profit Institute of International Education (IIE).
Engineering is no longer the most popular draw for Indian students headed to the United States for higher education. Programmes in mathematics and computer sciences have gained the top spot in order of preference over the past decade, shows an analysis by The Indian Express of Open Doors data compiled by the US State Department and the non-profit Institute of International Education (IEE).The numbers are telling: In 2009-10, 38.8 per cent or 40,700 Indian students enrolled in the US pursued engineering programmes. In 2021-22, the proportion of students in engineering fell to 29.6 per cent or 58,957 — the rise in absolute numbers is in sync with the overall increase in the number of Indian students in the US.During the same period, the number of Indian students in the US pursuing maths and computer science degrees nearly doubled — from 19.8 per cent to 36.8 per cent (see chart). In absolute terms, there were 20,769 Indian students in the US studying maths and computer science at the higher education level, as compared to 73,298 in 2021-22.This trend is likely to hold, according to the US mission in India. During the launch of the latest round of the Open Doors report in November last year, an official said that even in 2022, the majority of Indians who obtained student visas chose programmes in math and computer science, engineering and business/ management.A similar trend can be noticed even in the case of Chinese students in the US with fewer of them picking engineering compared to a decade ago, while in contrast, there are far more takers for courses in maths and computer sciences.On Sunday, The Indian Express reported another key finding from a comparative analysis of Open Doors data: Even as students from India and China form a majority of international students in the US, those from India are more likely to stay back after their degree and sign up for the Optional Practical Training programme that allows foreign graduates with F-1 (student visa) to join paid or voluntary work up to three years in the US.Additionally, there has been a steady decline in the enrollment of Indians in courses categorised as “health professions”. In 2010, about five per cent of students chose to study medicine in the US, and it dropped to 2.6 per cent by 2020. The number of Indian students studying life sciences also decreased from 10 per cent in 2013-14 to 6.5 per cent in 2021-22.In most other subjects such as social sciences, management, education, the enrollment figures did not register any substantial change. For instance in 2009-10, around 15 per cent of Indian students in the US for higher education were found studying management, and 13.3 per cent in 2021-22.Open Doors reports are based on surveys of international exchange activity in the United States by the US Department of State and the non-profit Institute of International Education (IIE).Data from the reports show that 199,182 Indian students pursued higher education in the US in 2021-22, a rise of 89.8 per cent from 2009-2010. Students of Chinese origin jumped 127 per cent during this period, from 127,628 to 290,086.The two countries collectively account for 52 per cent of all international students in the US.
The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered the district magistrates in the districts bordering Nepal to conduct a probe into the source of funding of those unrecognised madrasas that have declared zakat (money from charity) and donations as their primary source of funds to run their institutions.The government’s order comes in the wake of a two-month survey conducted last year to identify unrecognised madrasas in the state. The survey report was submitted to the government on November 15.“There are several madrasas in the areas on the Nepal border that have reported zakat (charity money) and donations as their source of funds. But survey teams found that people living in these areas are poor and not able to give zakat and donations. Such madrasas have been identified and directions have been issued for rechecking their source of funding. These madrasas are not revealing the names of those who give them zakat and donations,” Cabinet Minister for Minority Welfare, Muslim Waqf and Haj Dharmpal Singh said.“Such madrasas are in a big number. It appears these madrasas are getting funds from outside. Why someone from outside will fund them? We do not want our children to get misused. There are possibilities for it. Hence, information is being recollected and the source of their funding is being rechecked,” the minister told The Indian Express. The districts bordering Nepal where such madrasas are located include Siddharth Nagar, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Balrampur, Maharajganj among others, said sources.On August 30, the Yogi Adityanath-led government in the state directed district magistrates to conduct a survey of unrecognised madrasas. The survey started on September 10 and the district magistrates submitted their reports to the government on November 15. During the two-month survey, a total of 8,449 madrasas not recognised by the state madrasa education board were found to be functioning. The maximum number of unrecognised madrasas – 550 – were found in Moradabad district, followed by Siddharth Nagar (525) and Bahraich (500).There are over 25,000 madrasas across the state and of them over 16,513 are recognised by the UP Board of Madrasa Education. Over 19 lakh students are enrolled in these recognised madrasas.The government has divided the unrecognised madrasas into three categories:
The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered the district magistrates in the districts bordering Nepal to conduct a probe into the source of funding of those unrecognised madrasas that have declared zakat (money from charity) and donations as their primary source of funds to run their institutions.The government’s order comes in the wake of a two-month survey conducted last year to identify unrecognised madrasas in the state. The survey report was submitted to the government on November 15.“There are several madrasas in the areas on the Nepal border that have reported zakat (charity money) and donations as their source of funds. But survey teams found that people living in these areas are poor and not able to give zakat and donations. Such madrasas have been identified and directions have been issued for rechecking their source of funding. These madrasas are not revealing the names of those who give them zakat and donations,” Cabinet Minister for Minority Welfare, Muslim Waqf and Haj Dharmpal Singh said.“Such madrasas are in a big number. It appears these madrasas are getting funds from outside. Why someone from outside will fund them? We do not want our children to get misused. There are possibilities for it. Hence, information is being recollected and the source of their funding is being rechecked,” the minister told The Indian Express. The districts bordering Nepal where such madrasas are located include Siddharth Nagar, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Balrampur, Maharajganj among others, said sources.On August 30, the Yogi Adityanath-led government in the state directed district magistrates to conduct a survey of unrecognised madrasas. The survey started on September 10 and the district magistrates submitted their reports to the government on November 15. During the two-month survey, a total of 8,449 madrasas not recognised by the state madrasa education board were found to be functioning. The maximum number of unrecognised madrasas – 550 – were found in Moradabad district, followed by Siddharth Nagar (525) and Bahraich (500).There are over 25,000 madrasas across the state and of them over 16,513 are recognised by the UP Board of Madrasa Education. Over 19 lakh students are enrolled in these recognised madrasas.The government has divided the unrecognised madrasas into three categories:
The 2020 National Education Policy (NEP) was a pathbreaking moment in the annals of Indian higher education. The policy envisions “a complete overhaul and re-energising of the higher education system…” and says “India will be promoted as a global study destination providing premium education at affordable costs, thereby helping to restore its role as a Vishwa Guru”. Regulatory bodies have been advancing new policy initiatives to realise this vision. The just announced University Grants Commission (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023, have re-ignited debates on the internationalisation of Indian higher education.Over the last three decades, three major factors have influenced the internationalisation of higher education. First, the prohibitive costs of higher education, especially in developed countries. Indian students must pay approximately Rs 70 lakh per annum to study at Harvard, Yale or Stanford and over Rs 55 lakh per annum to study at Oxford or Cambridge. Tuition fees alone would be about 15 times more expensive than Indian private universities and over a hundred times more costly than most Indian public universities. Prohibitive costs will preclude education in any foreign university campus for most aspirants. The new proposal vitiates the NEP’s vision of equity and inclusion as it envisages higher education only for the super-rich.Second, the establishment costs of top university campuses make the project unviable. The vision of uniform academic standards in both the parent university and its international campus is a noble aspiration. However, the reality is international campuses have become a second-rate option, primarily accessible to those unable to get admission to the main campus. The quality and excellence in teaching and research on overseas campuses cannot match those in their primary location.Third, the landscape of global higher education has dramatically changed post-Covid. The idea of brick-and-mortar international campuses has given way to building solid partnerships, student and faculty mobility, exchange and immersion programmes, joint teaching and research opportunities, collaborative conferences and publications and the development of online and blended degree programmes. The global thinking around international collaborations has changed.India has an extraordinary opportunity to be an aspiring nation for students worldwide. Instead of enabling the creation of international campuses of universities from developed countries, we need to focus on becoming a global higher education destination in our own right. We will not realise the Vishwaguru aspiration by inviting prestigious foreign universities to locate campuses. We must assume the leadership role we had over 2,000 years ago when Nalanda, Takshashila, Vallabhi and Vikramshila attracted faculty and students from around the world. We can be truly global leaders in providing high-quality education at an affordable cost. Likewise, we can produce high-quality research at a relatively lower cost. Indian scientists made a successful mission to Mars with a modest budget of $74 million, less than the production cost of $108 million for Gravity, a Hollywood film.We need to do five things to become a global leader in international education:One, provide greater autonomy to Indian universities, including the Institutions of Eminence (IoE). Indian universities, both public and private, are generally highly regulated and poorly governed. The ingrained institutional habit of regulatory bodies instructing universities on what they should be doing must stop. One of the more liberal, progressive, and even radical public policy initiatives has been the creation of IoE. But this policy has not been adequately implemented to achieve its objectives. The government must pay greater attention to the IoEs and expand their scope and scale so that they become natural destinations for international students.Two, establish global universities in India led by the public and the private sector to cater to the needs and aspirations of international students. India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) is lopsided. The national GER is approximately 22 per cent but there are states, such as Tamil Nadu, with a GER of 52 per cent. We must build more public and private universities across the country, with greater autonomy, resources and better governance structures, minimising the role of the regulatory bodies. All states must create Special Education Zones (SEZs) and host universities that are global in their orientation and outlook.Three, provide more resources to Indian universities and not focus only on select centrally established institutions. Indian universities face acute resource scarcity. The NEP has envisaged a six per cent annual investment in higher education and a National Research Foundation to allocate additional resources. Government must encourage CSR and philanthropic initiatives with more tax incentives to enable private sector contributions to public and private universities.Four, the NEP envisages breaking the long-standing barriers between public and private institutions. But many biases and prejudices persist, and regulatory obstacles have not allowed private higher education institutions to function autonomously and independently on equal terms with public institutions. An institutionalised hierarchy in the Indian higher education system replicates the caste system. First, the IITs and the IIMs are placed high in the pecking order, followed by the central universities. Next come the IISERs, NITs, and other such institutions, and much lower down are the state public universities. It is only after exhausting every other type of publicly-funded institution that private universities come into the reckoning. These deep-rooted biases and prejudice have fostered discrimination against private universities.Five, establish a liberal and progressive regulatory ecosystem for Indian universities to attract international students. Much more than reforms in the education sector will be needed if India is to become a sought-after international destination for students from developing countries. Government must reform its visa processes and the FRRO registration procedures. There must be a significant improvement in the quality of infrastructure and hostels on university campuses. The safety, security and well-being of the students, especially women, must be ensured. Other forms of university towns and education cities can create a comprehensive ecosystem that will enable students and faculty to study, work and live in these communities.The vision of India becoming a Vishwaguru cannot be achieved by outsourcing Indian higher education to international universities. In any case, I do not think any top-ranked universities would set up campuses in India, and for good reasons.The writer is the Founding Vice Chancellor of O P Jindal Global University
The 2020 National Education Policy (NEP) was a pathbreaking moment in the annals of Indian higher education. The policy envisions “a complete overhaul and re-energising of the higher education system…” and says “India will be promoted as a global study destination providing premium education at affordable costs, thereby helping to restore its role as a Vishwa Guru”. Regulatory bodies have been advancing new policy initiatives to realise this vision. The just announced University Grants Commission (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023, have re-ignited debates on the internationalisation of Indian higher education.Over the last three decades, three major factors have influenced the internationalisation of higher education. First, the prohibitive costs of higher education, especially in developed countries. Indian students must pay approximately Rs 70 lakh per annum to study at Harvard, Yale or Stanford and over Rs 55 lakh per annum to study at Oxford or Cambridge. Tuition fees alone would be about 15 times more expensive than Indian private universities and over a hundred times more costly than most Indian public universities. Prohibitive costs will preclude education in any foreign university campus for most aspirants. The new proposal vitiates the NEP’s vision of equity and inclusion as it envisages higher education only for the super-rich.Second, the establishment costs of top university campuses make the project unviable. The vision of uniform academic standards in both the parent university and its international campus is a noble aspiration. However, the reality is international campuses have become a second-rate option, primarily accessible to those unable to get admission to the main campus. The quality and excellence in teaching and research on overseas campuses cannot match those in their primary location.Third, the landscape of global higher education has dramatically changed post-Covid. The idea of brick-and-mortar international campuses has given way to building solid partnerships, student and faculty mobility, exchange and immersion programmes, joint teaching and research opportunities, collaborative conferences and publications and the development of online and blended degree programmes. The global thinking around international collaborations has changed.India has an extraordinary opportunity to be an aspiring nation for students worldwide. Instead of enabling the creation of international campuses of universities from developed countries, we need to focus on becoming a global higher education destination in our own right. We will not realise the Vishwaguru aspiration by inviting prestigious foreign universities to locate campuses. We must assume the leadership role we had over 2,000 years ago when Nalanda, Takshashila, Vallabhi and Vikramshila attracted faculty and students from around the world. We can be truly global leaders in providing high-quality education at an affordable cost. Likewise, we can produce high-quality research at a relatively lower cost. Indian scientists made a successful mission to Mars with a modest budget of $74 million, less than the production cost of $108 million for Gravity, a Hollywood film.We need to do five things to become a global leader in international education:One, provide greater autonomy to Indian universities, including the Institutions of Eminence (IoE). Indian universities, both public and private, are generally highly regulated and poorly governed. The ingrained institutional habit of regulatory bodies instructing universities on what they should be doing must stop. One of the more liberal, progressive, and even radical public policy initiatives has been the creation of IoE. But this policy has not been adequately implemented to achieve its objectives. The government must pay greater attention to the IoEs and expand their scope and scale so that they become natural destinations for international students.Two, establish global universities in India led by the public and the private sector to cater to the needs and aspirations of international students. India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) is lopsided. The national GER is approximately 22 per cent but there are states, such as Tamil Nadu, with a GER of 52 per cent. We must build more public and private universities across the country, with greater autonomy, resources and better governance structures, minimising the role of the regulatory bodies. All states must create Special Education Zones (SEZs) and host universities that are global in their orientation and outlook.Three, provide more resources to Indian universities and not focus only on select centrally established institutions. Indian universities face acute resource scarcity. The NEP has envisaged a six per cent annual investment in higher education and a National Research Foundation to allocate additional resources. Government must encourage CSR and philanthropic initiatives with more tax incentives to enable private sector contributions to public and private universities.Four, the NEP envisages breaking the long-standing barriers between public and private institutions. But many biases and prejudices persist, and regulatory obstacles have not allowed private higher education institutions to function autonomously and independently on equal terms with public institutions. An institutionalised hierarchy in the Indian higher education system replicates the caste system. First, the IITs and the IIMs are placed high in the pecking order, followed by the central universities. Next come the IISERs, NITs, and other such institutions, and much lower down are the state public universities. It is only after exhausting every other type of publicly-funded institution that private universities come into the reckoning. These deep-rooted biases and prejudice have fostered discrimination against private universities.Five, establish a liberal and progressive regulatory ecosystem for Indian universities to attract international students. Much more than reforms in the education sector will be needed if India is to become a sought-after international destination for students from developing countries. Government must reform its visa processes and the FRRO registration procedures. There must be a significant improvement in the quality of infrastructure and hostels on university campuses. The safety, security and well-being of the students, especially women, must be ensured. Other forms of university towns and education cities can create a comprehensive ecosystem that will enable students and faculty to study, work and live in these communities.The vision of India becoming a Vishwaguru cannot be achieved by outsourcing Indian higher education to international universities. In any case, I do not think any top-ranked universities would set up campuses in India, and for good reasons.The writer is the Founding Vice Chancellor of O P Jindal Global University
The University Grants Commission is proposing new guidelines to allow the entry of foreign universities in India. Any good-faith effort to reform higher education ought to be welcomed. But before you applaud this latest pantomime on higher education and mistake it for a genuine revolution, ask a few probing questions. These so-called reforms, like so much that emanates from the UGC, are being carried out under false premises.Let us begin with the grandest of aspirations: To get top universities like Princeton, Stanford, Yale and Oxford to set up campuses in India. Ask yourself this. Why do these universities not have any branch campuses anywhere in the world, including countries with liberal regulatory environments? Why would they set up in India? What is it about the economics and the structural form of a top research university that makes it difficult to reproduce them? There are about four hundred foreign campuses operating in the world. But just consult the comprehensive database of American universities operating abroad compiled by C-BERT. Just go through the list yourself to see what proportion of those institutions are top-tier institutions. Barely a handful, if one is being generous. Very few are like NYU Abu Dhabi, but almost all of them received massive subsidies from the home government. Several high-profile ones like Yale–NUS have been “reabsorbed.” More than 30 per cent of foreign campuses receive some form of subsidy, and the better the institution, the more subsidy it requires. Can India justify subsidising top-tier foreign institutions with public money?Let us go further. This reform will apparently allow for the repatriation of money to the home institution. Now here is the blunt truth about universities. If you want to build a top-class university in India, it will have to integrate teaching and research. This is a financial black hole requiring continual support not derived from fees alone. Any private institution that is for profit that seeks to skim money off education can never build a world-class university since a top-class university requires continual reinvestment. Now, what kind of an institution looks to repatriate “surpluses?” The same kind that in India seeks profit.The UGC boldly declares that it will ensure that the qualifications of the faculty assigned to India will be the same as those of the faculty in the parent institution. A lot turns on how you interpret the term “qualification”. If it simply means formal equivalence of qualifications (PhD from a good institution, etc.) then most institutions are on par. But if it means faculty who are exceptional (which is what the top institutions claim they have), then there is no cost advantage to moving to India. Land and capital costs are not cheap. But if you are going to define equivalence as something close to those who have been through the tenure processes of the top-ranked universities, they have no economic or lifestyle incentives to spend a lot of time in India unless either their salaries are matched or exceeded. This makes running campuses in India with the same “standard” prohibitively expensive.Let us think about regulatory trust. Would you invest millions of dollars in a regulatory system that is unreliable, to say the least? There are at least 30 to 40 entrepreneurs in India who could (financially, at least), single-handedly create slightly lower-cost, world-class alternatives to Western institutions. But there has been only a trickle of institutions in India so far that are ambitious in this respect. The question to ask is why? If we are not investing enough, why would anyone else? Does anyone now remember the Institutions of Eminence revolution that was heralded a few years ago? How many of those high-profile greenfield projects have got off to a flying start, within two years, as was promised? How much net investment in higher-end research universities did that botched reform generate?The mendacity of this reform will also be obvious to anyone who has looked at Indian higher education. The same UGC that wants to standardise the admissions process for all public universities gravely assaults their autonomy day in and day out and is now supposed to protect the autonomy and distinct identity of foreign universities. You would be foolish to take the UGC at face value. In any case, the UGC is engaging in a nauseating form of reverse discrimination against Indian, and especially public, institutions. You ought to be wary of such a regulator. Just imagine the oddity of saying in higher education: Freedom for foreign, chains for the Indian.What is this reform supposed to achieve? The ostensible rationale is to make high-quality foreign education available in India at a somewhat lower cost so that students don’t have to leave, and some of the billions we are using to consume foreign higher education can be spent in the country. If you look at the C-BERT list, what strikes you is that not only are there very few top-tier universities, most foreign campuses are very small, with an average size of 300-400 students. How much supply are you augmenting, especially in a context where you are diminishing the net supply of higher education by destroying established public universities? Perhaps Indian capital might be willing to subsidise a foreign brand. Perhaps some professional schools will show up since mostly they can generate a surplus.The only thing good about this announcement is the UGC’s perverse honesty. It thinks of universities and teaching like a McDonald’s franchise that can easily be replicated without regard to agglomeration effects, or the effects of the larger ecosystem in which they are embedded. It seems to have little conception of what combination of capital, vision, and human resources it takes to get a high-end research university going. More depressing is its utter defeatism. The UGC has admitted that its cumulative failures, across governments and political parties, have brought us to this pass. India could have been a top-class, lower-cost higher education hub for the world. Indian universities, both public and private, can reach glorious heights of excellence; that both the top and the average quality can be improved. We gave up on that project with public institutions a while ago, then pinned hopes on a private revolution, which in quality terms is still a trickle, and now want to hang onto the coattails of foreign brands who will either be elusive or for the most part second rate. University Gimmicks Commission, indeed.The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
