In our previous investigation (Are India’s private universities hacking global rankings? we exposed the ‘75-point anomaly’ – the large gap where private Indian universities have ‘Research Quality’ scores rivalling Oxford, but their ‘Research Environment’ remains in the basement.
Now, comparing their Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026 performance with salary data from India’s NIRF 2025 (National Institutional Ranking Framework) reveals another shocker – UG 4-year student salaries at some of these ‘top private universities in THE’ are five times lower than THE’s ‘lower-ranked’ IITs. Unlike THE, NIRF mandates the reporting of audited median salaries.
Shoolini vs IIT Guwahati
For instance, Himachal Pradesh’s Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences was ranked in the 401-500 band by THE, far higher than IIT Guwahati’s 801-1000 band (2025), and yet the median salary at IIT Guwahati was Rs 19.48 lakh (2023-24 AY), as compared to Shoolini’s Rs 3.84 lakh.
Saveetha versus BITS Pilani
Similarly, BITS Pilani, which was ranked in the 801-1000 band by THE, offered a median salary of Rs 18 lakh (2023-24 AY), but the ‘far superior’ Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (351-400 band) could manage just Rs 4.72 lakh.
Lovely versus IIT Gandhinagar
IIT Gandhinagar (in the lowly 1001-1200 band) offered a median salary of Rs 14 lakh (2023-24 AY) to its students, but the ‘much better’ Lovely Professional University (501-600 band) could manage just Rs 8 lakh.
“Salary data often acts as a market-driven lie detector,” an education analyst told FE. “If these private universities were truly world-class and superior to the IITs – as shown in THE – industry would be paying a premium for their graduates. But that’s not the case.”
Older IITs
Although ‘older IITs’ such as Delhi, Bombay, Madras continue their boycott of THE rankings, second-generation powerhouses like IIT Guwahati (it boycotted initially, but rejoined) and IIT Indore now find themselves trailing behind private institutes that barely crack the domestic top 50.
“Shoolini is ranked nearly 400 spots higher than IIT Guwahati globally, yet its average graduate earns nearly five times less,” the analyst said. “This discrepancy exists because global ranking bodies like THE heavily weight ‘citations’, a metric being gamed through citation cartels, while ignoring employment outcomes.”
BITS Pilani withdrawal
In January, BITS Pilani joined the older IITs in withdrawing from THE Rankings. Prof V Ramgopal Rao, former director of IIT Delhi (2016-21) and current group vice-chancellor of BITS Pilani, described the system as an increasingly opaque “black box.”
“The concern has evolved,” Prof Rao noted. While the 2020 IIT boycott focused on opaque reputation surveys – or perception – the issue is now embedded in the ‘Research Quality’ pillar, which accounts for 30% of the overall score. All four of its sub-indicators – citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and research influence – are derived from citation behaviour.
This leads to academic absurdities.
“The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), widely regarded as India’s premier research institution, appears relatively low on global research quality indicators compared to much younger institutions in India,” Prof Rao said. He pointed to a critical loophole: THE’s documentation confirms that self-citations are included in their data. Without excluding these, citation-heavy composites become sensitive to citation networks and mandatory undergraduate publishing practices that do not align with actual research maturity.
Prof Rao explained that BITS Pilani’s decision to withdraw followed a multi-year internal assessment which found THE outcomes impossible to reconcile with independently verifiable indicators, such as research funding, consultancy income, and industry engagement – all of which are captured transparently by NIRF, but possibly ignored by THE’s ‘Research Quality’ algorithm.
THE admits ‘gaming’ and ‘outliers’
Following our initial report, Phil Baty, chief global affairs officer at THE, acknowledged the problem publicly on LinkedIn. While defending the use of 17 performance metrics, Baty admitted, “There are clearly some outliers among the research quality metrics, and we’re looking very closely at potential gaming and research integrity challenges.”
Is NIRF immune?
While Prof Rao described NIRF as a “sound foundational architecture” because of its transparent methodology and public disclosure of data, he warned that institutions may increasingly choose “selective and principled engagement” with rankings, rather than automatic participation.
In fact, Prof Rao co-authored a paper – ‘Unpacking Inconsistencies in the NIRF rankings’ – published in the journal ‘Current Science’ in 2024. The paper raised concerns about the reliability of the rankings, flagging issues like the ‘subjective’ nature of the ‘perception’ parameter that is included in NIRF, inadequate transparency in the methodology, and reliance on data that is self-reported by institutions.
Confirming this fact, the education analyst we talked to added that even in NIRF, private players are accused of ‘data inflation’. Unlike public IITs subject to CAG audits, private universities rely on self-reporting. Allegations of ‘phantom faculty’ – listing the same professors across multiple departments – and the rigging of ‘perception’ scores through massive marketing budgets remain big concerns.
The final verdict
The tragedy of the ‘citation cartel’ is the misinformation sold to students and parents. When a private university uses its top-500 global status to justify premium tuition, it is selling a narrative that neither the Indian government (via NIRF) nor the job market (via salaries) supports.
As India’s education sector matures, the gap between ‘ranked quality’ and ‘actual quality’ is becoming a chasm. Until global ranking bodies address citation manipulation and perception inflation, these leaderboards will remain a scoreboard for those who know how to play the system, rather than those who excel in the classroom.