Page 38 - EW June 2023

Cover Story

MICHIGAN COLLEGES ALLIANCE

AMERICA'S HIDDEN GEMS

PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES

The primary focus of Indian students tends to be on
Ivy league and large universities on the East and West
coasts. However, America’s 600 inland higher education
institutions — many as good as the best — are unknown
quantities to our school leavers and graduates

Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen

A LTHOUGH BECAUSE OF ADOPTION 43,000) and 300 (1,110) universities, especially the 23 glob-

ally admired Central government-run IITs (Indian Insti-
of inorganic socialist ideology im-
tutes of Technology), 20 postgrad IIMs (Indian Institutes of
mediately after independence in
1947 from almost two centuries
Management) and 273 government medical colleges.
of exploitative colonial rule, India
Unsurprisingly, competition to enter the best colleges
remains one of the world’s poorest
countries with an annual per capi-
a mere 2 percent of the 260,000 higher secondary school-
ta income of $2,097 (Rs.172,000), and universities is intense. For instance, the 23 IITs admit
leavers who write their famously tough JEE (joint entrance
somewhat paradoxically, it also hosts a middle class esti- exams). The remainder 10 million school-leavers scramble
mated at a humongous 432 million with annual household for admission into the country’s Top 300 government un-
incomes of Rs.5-30 lakh ($6,000-36,000 ppp) by PRICE, dergrad colleges and universities and Top 500 private col-
a Delhi-based think tank. This translates into the world’s leges/universities ranked by EducationWorld in April and
largest middle class after China, and greater than the entire May.
population of the United States. Yet the dream of all middle class households is to be-
This status conscious middle class is highly aspirational stow their children foreign — especially American — higher
and unlike the majority of the population, is well-aware of education. With their sprawling immaculately landscaped
the upward mobility value of high quality education. They campuses, capital-intensive infrastructure including huge
send their children almost entirely to fees-levying private libraries and research capabilities, and high quality faculty,
schools (48 percent of all 260 million school-going chil- universities in America are sought after by India’s upper
dren are in private K-12 education) and are desperate to middle class who have become acutely aware that the best
enroll them in the country’s Top 500 colleges (out of a total gift they can give their children is foreign — particularly

38 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2023