Fake universities have been thriving for 17 years – without inviting crackdown

Of the many problems that beset education in India, creating quality tertiary-level education infrastructure has proved one of the most challenging, and the country’s abysmal gross enrolment in colleges and universities reflects this. While this means encouraging the setting up of more varsities and higher education institutions, there has to be quality check, too. It is appalling, therefore, that 14 fake universities—out of UGC’s list of 23 for this year—have been around for 17 years now, without inviting any action from the government. These ‘universities’ are neither allowed to hand out degrees nor are even allowed to call themselves universities in the first place.

The problem is that neither the Centre nor the states—six of the 14 are in Uttar Pradesh and four are in Delhi—have taken any action against them, though, as per a Hindustan Times report, the Union HRD ministry has done as much as prod the states to take action. The UGC has been sounding caution to prospective students through its Know Your College website where students can check the status of a purported university or higher education institution. The AICTE too reports 279 fake technical institutes in the country, with Delhi leading the pack with 66 such colleges/institutes, while in South India, Telangana has the most number of fake tech colleges (44). The costs of education, including higher

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The costs of education, including higher education have shot up substantially in the past few years—NSSO data shows that the average annual private expenditure on education (primary to tertiary) has increased by 175% (R6,800/per student) between 2008 and 2014, with costs of professional and technical education almost doubling in the same period. At the same time, credit uptake for education has grown—from R36,900 crore in 2009-10 in outstanding student loans to R68,200 crore in 2015-16. If fake universities are allowed to dupe the youth and their parents of their money, the country ends up paying a heavy price.