Higher Education Under Structural Adjustment

In this paper the effects of adjustment policies on higher education in India are briefly analysed, and with the help of limited data available for a short period, it has been shown that the adjustment policies tend to result in severe budget cuts or significant reduction in rates of growth in budget expenditure on higher education and, more importantly, in major shifts in policies relating to state financing of higher education (e.g., student fees, student loan programmes and privatisation in general) in undesirable directions, which have serious long term implications, as they tend to be irreversible. It is argued here that since the success in adjustment policies requires highly skilled manpower, it b necessary to safeguard the whole education system, including higher education, from the adverse effects of adjustment policies.