Campus calls: Pressures on US universities could be India's opportunity

American President Donald Trump’s crackdown on foreign students has opened up an opportunity for India. With the United States (US) cancelling the visas of hundreds of international students for reasons that range from the political to the trivial, the allure of a US university and perhaps the American dream for Indian students are now fraught with uncertainty. Since immigration is also a Trump pet peeve, the latter advantage, too, is likely to be nullified. The withdrawal of state funding for key projects to Ivy League institutions such as Harvard and Columbia will also pressure these institutions for whom foreign students are a key source of revenue. These multiple uncertainties could well be India’s chance to significantly upgrade the domestic university ecosystem by attracting marquee institutions of higher learning to Indian shores, just as China started doing decades ago. The University Grants Commission (UGC), the statutory body that underwrites and regulates (including universities set up by state governments), had set the ball rolling in 2023 by issuing guidelines for top foreign universities to set up their bases in India. This initiative could be significantly expanded by enabling state-level institutions to access similar opportunities. Such a move would not come a day too soon.

 

With notable exceptions, the state of higher education in India leaves much to be desired. Bar the Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, and some liberal arts institutions, Indian universities tend to be little more than teaching shops of often dubious quality and none figures among the top 10 global rankings. Cutting-edge research of the type that universities in the US and Europe have established over the decades is all but non-existent. This is partly a result of the inadequacy of the UGC, which dictates salary levels for academic staff and syllabi, and regulates fees. Over the years, the systemic under-resourcing of the university system has created institutional ennui. In 2018, for instance, the UGC offered colleges a degree of autonomy under certain conditions. Few colleges have taken advantage of this relaxation, mostly because universities that oversee them fear a loss of control. But under-resourcing remains a serious problem, principally because fees are low and the culture of endowments, the backbone of university funding in the US, for example, is virtually missing in the Indian education system.

 

Since regulations for foreign universities are already in place and offer considerable freedom of operation, the education departments at both the Centre and in states should initiate campaigns to invite reputed institutions of higher learning to India. A successful template exists in the form of the Indian School of Business (ISB), which has tieups with Kellogg School, Wharton, London Business School, and Tufts. A signature achievement of Chandrababu Naidu as chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, the ISB now has a campus in Mohali, near Chandigarh. But it remains an exception in a limited field. Since 2018, only three foreign universities have set up operations, none of them of note, though the UGC is considering approving over 50 high-quality foreign universities. The time to accelerate this process is opportune, and India can derive immeasurable benefit — more so if political dispensations can restrain themselves from attempting to influence academic syllabi and appointments.