DEFUNDED BY GOVT, PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES CAN FOLLOW EXAMPLE OF IIT MADRAS THAT RAISED ₹131 CRORE FROM ALUMNI IN 2021-22

India’s state-funded universities face devastation due to chronic underfunding, but creative funding strategies can offer hope for revival and sustainability.

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Once emblems of accessible, high-quality education, India’s state-funded universities and colleges now teeter on devastation. The situation as it is right now is marked by crumbling infrastructure, unfilled position of faculty, and difficulty keeping fundamental services running. Visit any state-funded university, it is highly likely one will run into a swaths of unkempt lawns, buildings, dilapidated toilets, dark corridors and crumbling furniture and fittings.

This unstable condition is not accidental; it is a direct result of decades of failing state funding, which forces institutions to search creative ideas to guarantee their existence and continuous contribution to the intellectual capital of the country.

For decades, government grants — once accounting for more than 90% of university budgets and now drastically reduced — have been the cornerstone of state-funded education. On closer inspection, though, a worrying tendency emerges: although nominal allocations would seem to rise, the real value, inflation-adjusted, presents a negative picture.

Adjusted for inflation, government financing has grown at a modest 2.58% yearly — a pace much exceeded by the rising expenses of labour, infrastructure maintenance, and research. As such, a chronic underfunding is choking academic quality and creativity.

The figures say a lot. Salary and pensions account for an astounding 85% of university budgets, therefore leaving little for academic enrichment, research, or necessary infrastructure improvements. The terrible inefficiency in fund use adds to complicate the matter. Shockingly, 162 public universities did not spend their allotted budgets which means they did not have the capacity to manage the allotted resources, according to a CAG report in 22-23.