India’s Quest for World-Ranked Universities

With the rise in importance of global university rankings, countries and universities are vying to improve their rankings and compete to be in the top 200. In this article, we look at the age, size, and funding of the top universities globally, and do a similar analysis for the top higher education institutions (HEIs) in India. The analysis shows that in the world top 200 universities, over 65% were founded before 1900 and only 7% after 1975, while in India about 60% HEIs were founded after 1975, and only 3% before 1900. In size, over 90% of the world’s top 200 universities have a student strength of more than 10,000 and less than 3% have less than 5000. In terms of faculty, about 70% have more than 1000 faculty members and only 6% have less than 500. In India, on the other hand, only about 15% of the top HEIs have more than 10,000 students while more than half have student strength of less than 5000; and only 2% have more than 1000 faculty and over 80% have faculty size less than 500. Finally, R&D spending of the top global research universities can be as much as ten times that of other research universities, while in India the resources are more evenly distributed with top universities having about 50% higher support. While nothing can be done about age, size and funding levels are within the realm of planning and policy making. The analysis suggests that to be in the global top 200 universities, some of the top HEI in India should be expanded to become globally comparable in size, and support for them should be substantially increased.