CHENNAI, India — “Higher education: The mess,” screamed the cover of India Today, one of the country’s leading news magazines.
“Welcome to the club!” I thought to myself, reflecting on how the cover echoed discussions in the United States.
In America, the mess in higher education has been a major preoccupation.
In particular, the financial aspects from a student’s perspective are increasingly bleak. The recent issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that more students are taking out loans thanks to the widening gap between the cost of attending colleges and universities, and the financial ability of students and their families to pay: “Nearly 53 percent of full-time undergraduate students borrowed money to attend college in 2007-8, compared with 49.5 percent in 2003-4.”
To make things worse, fresh college graduates find that there are few jobs waiting for them, a situation that has grown even worse.
After all the time and money invested, students and their families begin to wonder if college degrees were worth it.
Having seen quite a few students in those circumstances, some, including me, wonder whether higher education is an economic bubble that is waiting to burst, similar to other bubbles that already have burst in this Great Recession.
However, the problems pale in comparison to those in India.
There simply aren’t enough colleges and universities in India to serve the large population that is college-ready. Capacity is an important issue because, demographically speaking, India is a young country — almost half the country’s population is younger than 25 years old.
Such a choked structure makes higher education significantly less accessible to the less privileged — and there are a lot of them.
My parents’ neighbors tapped into their networks to get a seat at one of the evening colleges here in Chennai for an 18-year-old whose mother works as a maid. There would not have been a college seat for this teenager without this effort.
My parents and their neighbors have chipped in with financial assistance, which has made it possible for this young man to attend college after working for a couple of hours every morning.
A few aspects of the Indian “mess,” however, are simply beyond any comparison with the United States.
For instance, the India Today article reports that “on average most Indian universities revise their curricula only once in five to 10 years.”
Such a “stable” curriculum might have been acceptable in the early years of the 20th century, but not now when we are barely able keep up with changes that come every day.
In contrast, most of the universities in the United States, including the one where I teach, regularly update the curricula to reflect new insights gained through scholarship, and to prepare students for a rapidly changing world.
In fact, a college curriculum that is not considered current might be grounds for revoking an institution’s accreditation.
On top of this, within the academic walls, and in public forums, including this newspaper, we have intense debates and arguments about higher education — something sorely lacking in many other countries, including India. These help ensure that the typical American college is of significantly higher quality than a typical institution in most parts of the world.
Ultimately, however, it comes down to the quality of students. I think this is really where the Indian higher education system is in a mess.
Citing a study by the McKinsey consulting group, India Today reports that “only one out of 10 Indian students with degrees in humanities and one of four engineering graduates are employable.” This certainly warrants an OMG!
The dismal conditions in India do not mean that we do not need to work on higher education issues, particularly here in Oregon. We need to be constantly vigilant — not to fend off economic threats outside our borders, but because we ought to offer the best opportunities to our youth.
I am reminded of my childhood: Whenever we complained that a sibling or a cousin got more snacks, my grandmother admonished us to “just focus on your plate!”
In America, in more ways than one, we do, indeed, have a lot on our plate.
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