On Foreign University Campus Initiative of Government of India
Rahul, the son of a family friend, got into an undergraduate program at Yale University in the USA. Rita got admitted to the master’s program in business administration at Northwestern University in the USA. Both decided to go to the USA. They were fortunate enough to have wealthy parents who could afford to pay for their education in the USA. These are not rare cases. Over 6.4 lakh students went abroad to pursue higher studies in 2022. According to the Redseer report, it is estimated that 1.8 million students will be spending $85 billion on education overseas by 2024. According to the US government statistics, between 2011 and 2021, the number of Indian students studying in the USA doubled from 100,270 to 199,182. More importantly, whereas 1 in 8 Indian students was an undergraduate in 2011, in 2021, this proportion had increased to 1 in 4.
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommends establishing foreign university campuses in India. Accordingly, the UGC recently circulated a draft that sets rules and norms that will apply to foreign universities wishing to establish campuses in India. Assume that this policy successfully attracts Yale and Northwestern Universities to open branch campuses in India. Will Rahul and Rita attend those branch campuses instead of spending a lot more money to study at parent university campuses? Parent campuses provide a much richer, culturally diverse experience and a better springboard for finding jobs and settling abroad. So, it is reasonable to assume that students whose parents can afford it will continue to head overseas for higher studies. There will be negligible savings in foreign exchange. The branch campuses would primarily serve the next layer of students who are excellent but unable to afford to go abroad. Thus, we will increase the outflow instead of saving money sent abroad for higher studies.
Most branch campuses take over a decade to provide a culture and experience comparable to parent campuses. Moreover, the motivations of foreign universities in opening a branch campus tend to be more commercial, i.e., create better brand awareness and generate more income to improve financials. Rarely do they create vibrant research centers at branch campuses. Even when creating research centers, these tend to focus more on local issues. Thus, these international branch campuses will serve as the conduit to seek bright undergraduates to do their post-graduate work at parent campuses. Creating a glide path for more students to do postgraduate work abroad and to settle abroad is different than what NEP 2020 policy should wish for.
Another aspect of encouraging foreign universities to open branch campuses is its impact on Indian Higher Education Institutions (HEI). Establishing a good university is a long process. A branch campus relying on the parent university to import better practices will still take over a decade to mature into a campus with as good a culture as the parent campus. The spillover effect of a great branch campus on the culture and the quality of Indian HEIs, if it happens, will take even longer. In the meantime, in short to medium range, international branch campuses will siphon away the best students (and the fees they pay) and the best faculty away from Indian HEI, weakening them further.
Given such unintended harmful effects, the government should focus on other programs outlined in NEP 2020. The study abroad programs prevalent at many top-ranked universities are an area with high returns at lower investments. Government should encourage our HEIs to establish a mutual exchange of students with top-tier universities. Constructing residential facilities to house international students and accompanying faculty and providing facilities to teach courses would encourage the establishment of study in India for semester programs. With this, we would accomplish two goals: create ambassadors for India among foreign countries and expose local students and faculty to different educational cultures.
Creating programs that would bring foreign research faculty to India for a short or semester-long stay would be another area with a higher impact on our education ecosystem. The government may consider giving research grants to foreign faculty that agree to collaborate with local faculty and is also obliged to spend some time teaching and guiding postgraduate students in India. May be government establishes centers of excellence in an area and at an institute that brings in a certain number of foreign faculty to join the center. The government may allow some HEIs to offer significantly different salaries to eminent foreign faculty to join permanently.
In short, the government will achieve more by focusing on these programs, improving the educational ecosystem with fewer harmful impacts, and de-emphasizing the creation of foreign university campuses in India.