'As it is on other developing nations, higher education system grapples with financial challenges which when coupled with higher enrolment rates, results in structural and statistical problems. Increased cost of education in India has resulted to unprecedented financial challenges to university administration, parents and students alike.'
Cost of Higher Education in India
By the end of the 20th century, higher education in India had scaled up to become the largest in the world, after the United States, and China. However, until a few centuries ago, education in the country was a preserve to a few elites of the society, as the organized system had selected preferences to selected sections of the society. After independence, education in India began to reach new learners and enrolling people from all walks of life and caste system. The cost of education has been very prohibitive in the country, despite the fact that the government finances higher education fees. As it is on other developing nations, higher education system grapples with financial challenges which when coupled with higher enrolment rates, results in structural and statistical problems. Increased cost of education in India has resulted to unprecedented financial challenges to university administration, parents and students alike. This paper, therefore, explores the issues and challenges regarding the increased cost of higher education in India.
In India, nearly one-third of the national budget goes into facilitating higher education at public universities in India are public funded (Prakash, 2007). Higher education has been expressed as a necessity for the higher good of the country and therefore, has necessitated the country to take an active role in the facilitation of higher education. In post-independence India, higher education was seen as the foundation into which it would build a self-reliant and modern industrialized economy (Prakash, 2007). However, challenges arose due to the policy changes and economic shifts which engulfed the country in the 1990s, resulting in declining of state funding of higher education. In this case, the public resources and social expectation of higher education have since then undergone critical shifts, necessitating changes in financing trends. Prakash, (2007) notes that external and internal changes which are happening with the higher education sector are changing its character, in terms of governance, faculty, student functions and curriculum deployment. The impact of these has been changed in tuition fees, choices of programs provided which are dictated by bother market and government pressures.
Administrators in Higher Education and College’s departments, politicians, concur on the perspective that a decline in government support is one of the critical reasons for the plugging costs of college education (Rani, 2014). The government is solely responsible for the facilitation of college education. However, the government’s annual budget can only facilitate 33% of higher education institutions operations with the rest being left to sort out on their own. In response to this shortfall, as Rani, (2014) notes, many of the institutions end up raising the tuition fees or decreasing the number or quality of courses being offered, to accommodate to rectify the anomaly. This problem is further burdened to students who have to attend colleges no matter the cost. This situation has since then pushed many of parents into a tight corner, because of the belief that higher education would enable their children to become successful in the future. However, affordability hinders most of the parents to meet the needs of students in higher education institutions.
Sheikh, (2017) notes that India’s economy has become one of the most competitive in the world, with high population making professional jobs uneasy about attaining due to the higher number of applicants. Therefore, attaining the highest level of education become the probably added advantage. Simple jobs in the country even require an applicant to have bachelors, masters or doctorate degrees. Therefore, students are forced to attend colleges that are far from their hometowns and forced to incur living costs which is part of the overall higher education costs. Mulhern, Spies, Staiger, & Wu, (2015) note that “the risk is most evident in the ever-increasing tuition our colleges and universities charge. Regardless of the reasons, higher prices mean fewer families can gain the education and training they need to grow and prosper in their communities”. However, those students who are from less privileged families are forced to take student loans or apply for scholarships or drop out of school altogether. Despite having numerous scholarships on offer, some students are still disqualified for attaining quality education due to placement criteria failures. More so, most of the students end up struggling with living expenses because a huge portion of the funding has been used to facilitate tuition fees.
Competition among colleges and universities also contributes to the rise in the higher cost of education. The ranking of higher education institutions is usually determined by the availability and nature of resources within each institution (Umashankar, & Dutta, 2007). Therefore, to achieve higher ratings on a national and global scale, many of the institutions usually show what they are reckoned with. According to Umashankar, & Dutta, (2007), they embark on employing the most famous and expensive professionals, build state of the art educational facilities, dormitories, buildings, and sports facilities. All these costs are financed by the students who are forced to meet these financial obligations despite the financial constraints in the families. These expenditures result in increased financial obligations to students and thereby increasing the overall costs of higher education in the country.
Rising inflation has compounded many of the universities to constantly adjust their fiscal budgets, leading to fluctuating or increasing tuition fees every year (Basant & Sen, 2016). The government funding on higher education has remained the same despite the increasing higher education expenditures due to inflation. With the reimbursing of university funds having some delays, universities are left to seek alternative means to meet their demands. As a result, students are compelled to measure up and meet these shortfalls. Inflation makes budgeting difficult, with university administrators having to deal with unmet operation needs. According to Basant & Sen, (2016) decline or non -inflation-adjusted funding appropriations in the country has made every institution of higher education in the country to depend on tuition fees to meet financial obligations to equipment for curriculum implementation.
Between the years 2000 to 2017, the cost of higher education has risen steadily, to above 30% as noted by the University Grants and Commission (UGC). Financial statistics in the country have indicated the higher education in the country has risen more than personal incomes, health insurance or consumer prices. Public universities in India charged approximately $13000 for both tuition and boarding fees, while private universities are charging above $31000 for the same courses offered (Mehrotra, 2012). The increasing cost of higher education has taken a huge chunk of household budgets. A study conducted by Assocham India has proven the 65% of household income is spent on children education with more spend on extra-curricular activities (Mehrotra, 2012).
Declining unit costs in higher education funding per unit has also resulted in higher costs of higher education in the country. Basant & Sen, (2016) observed that over the years, government expenditure on per student has increased in terms of nominal prices but reduced on real prices. In this case, the growing population, and increased population has led to squeezing per student availability of resources. In 2016-2017, the total enrollment in universities stood at 35.7 million students, a 3.4 million increase from the year 2014- 2015 (Sheikh, 2017). Slowed economic growth in the country has ensured that the government is not prepared to finance this rapidly expanding higher education sector. In this case, government aid to students has been on the decline, to ensure that each student gets a share of the reimbursed funds (Basant & Sen, 2016).
Most of the students have to rely on loans, meaning that they leave colleges with huge debts. Research done on student debts has shown that loans have doubled over the past decade. At the year 1999, many students who had debts had to repay approximately $9,500, while by the year 2010, debt repayment had risen to approximately $19,000 (Choudhury, & Tilak, 2018). When adjustment for inflation is considered, these numbers have increased by 58% over the years. Stakeholders in education have projected that an increase in the aid given by the government will only make matters worse, an institution will rely on the government for back up. Choudhury, & Tilak, (2018) notes that the scholarships which are given to students only account to about 20% of the student’s expenses in a school, meaning that they have to take care of the rest. Despite these financial aids, students will still graduate with loans which amount to about $25,000 or more.
There several emerging concerns and challenges which is derived from the high cost of higher education, and how it affects the education system in the country. Access to higher education will be affected if the cost of higher education continues to increase in the country (Sheikh, 2017). Even though Indian higher education is one of the largest in the world, it still lags compared to other developing nations in terms of access. Sheikh, (2017) observed that higher education access in the country is still abysmally low, despite the government initiatives to increase enrollment from all states in the country. Access to higher education in India is still by far a preserve for the privileged, as the gap between enrolment and graduation is wide based on the socio-economic situations of the student. President Ram N. Kovind noted that it is the prerogative of the young people of India to “bear in mind that access to education in India is still a privilege in India…and that there is a better need for the government and other stakeholders in making higher education inclusive and expansive” (PTI, 2019)
The cost recovery methods employed by the institutions of higher education to resolve the shortage of funds from the government is burdensome to the students. According to Thanuskodi, (2011) the government has initiated measures to ensure that tuition fees do not exceed beyond the reach of many students. In many of the developed nations, the recovery levels do not exceed beyond 15%. However, in Indian higher education institution, the recovery aspect of fees exceeds beyond what was recommended by the Punnayya Committee of 2005 (Thanuskodi, 2011). Therefore, uncontrolled increase in higher education tuition fees would result in regressive effects such as the composition and levels of enrollment.
The decline in government and allocation of higher education funding to cover increased enrolment has compelled many universities to consider self-financing seats and courses. Distance learning courses have been introduced in the country for the institutions to finance their mainstream activities (Mehrotra, 2012). In this case, revenue collected is not utilized for the sake of the student, but rather it is used by the universities to further their expansion or finance other activities. It is hard to meet these guidelines especially for those institutions that are in areas of the less privileged or having students from lower-income families. Mehrotra, (2012) notes that another method utilized by universities is to have self-sustaining courses. With a growing trend in these courses in the country, it might compel the higher education system to be restructured to have courses which are only self-reliant. The detriment of this restructuring is that in the future, higher education will suffer from truncated growth.
The austerity measures undertaken by universities threaten the internal allocation of resources. It is impossible to induce pay cuts to university staff or reduce the operational costs through slashing of essential services of administration (Thanuskodi, 2011). The effect of these austerity measures is felt by new recruitments, publication of books and journals, and scholarships offered by the universities.Phil Baty, who serves the Times Higher Education (THEs) rankings editor argued that “the higher education system in India has had to cope with the huge increase in student numbers, which puts pressure on resources and quality. Also, a large number of Indian universities do not meet our criteria, including the minimum number of research papers to be published each year” This means that as some universities attempt to reorganize their institution to fit the budget and resources which they have, it leads to the decline of the quality of education offered. Other universities have stopped in employing new faculties, subscribing to essential consumables and journals. The 2010 Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) Committee noted that there is a critical lack of physical facilities in higher education universities. This is because of demand exceeds the supply of facilities necessary for quality instruction and learning.
To conclude, increasing high cost of university education is detrimental to the development and growth of the Indian economy, which is among the most competitive in the world. Growth in population is not making it any better and increase in national allocation of funds to institutions does little to mitigate the problem. The high cost of education depletes family income, adversely affects the quality of instructions and learning, and reduce the quality of degrees, in terms of attaining educational experiences and skillsets. Therefore, there are many initiatives to be undertaken to restructure the system of higher education, redesign it for it to be accessible and beneficial for all Indians.
References
Basant, R., & Sen, G. (2016). Impact of Affirmative Action in Higher Education for the Other Backward Classes in India. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2814128
Choudhury, P.K. & Tilak, J. (2018). Inequality in Access to Higher Education in India between the Poor and the Rich: An Analysis of 64th and 71st Rounds of NSSO Data (2007-08 and 2013-14). In Social Development Report 2018. Council for Social Development/Oxford University Press
Mehrotra, S. (2012). The cost and financing of the right to education in India: Can we fill the financing gap? International Journal of Educational Development, 32(1), 65-71.
Mulhern, C., Spies, R. R., Staiger, M. P., & Wu, D. D. (2015). The effects of rising student costs in higher education: Evidence from public institutions in Virginia. ITHAKA.
Niazi, S. (2018). Higher education access rising but challenges lie ahead. Retrieved from https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20180113045116882
Prakash, V. (2007). Trends in growth and financing of higher education in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 3249-3258.
PTI. (2019). Access to higher education still a privilege in India: Ram Nath Kovind - Times of India. Retrieved from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/access-to-higher-education-still-a-privilege-in-india-ram-nath-kovind/articleshow/64897277.cms
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Umashankar, V., & Dutta, K. (2007). Balanced scorecards in managing higher education institutions: an Indian perspective. International Journal of Educational Management, 21(1), 54-67.
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