How private universities affect higher-education opportunities in India

The focus on liberal arts and the shift to a more nuanced core curriculum structure is both new and niche

The year was 2005 and the month, May. A student who should’ve been out celebrating her spectacular class XII results had, instead, buried her face in a pillow to muffle the wailing. Even with an aggregate of 93 per cent, her chances of getting into a “respectable” college for the honours course at Delhi University that she had set her sights on were slim. This is a generic scene, one that likely plays itself out in most households come exam season, when hopes and dreams of a shiny, new life are traded in the college marketplace with panic-ridden marksheets, entrance