Commercialization of higher education is killing the dreams of India’s middle class: Root cause of frustrations among the aspiring youths.
VK Bahuguna
August 25, 2026
The recent agitation at Jantar Mantar, Jharkhand and in many other states on paper leak has shaken the conscious of this nation. The spark ignited by the unwarranted UGC guidelines dividing the students and the country on caste lines was overtaken by the paper leak controversy and put the country into utter turmoil which was exploited by the antinational forces like in previous two agitations. The recent police actions and exposures on paper leaks have proved that senior professors and a chain of people responsible for conducting the exams were found deeply involved in this racket which clearly proves the cesspool of Indian education system. Let me discuss how the changes have occurred since people like me from the middle class got admitted and completed the Masters degree and my son got admitted in the year 2001 in B. Tech in IIT Delhi and completed B.Tech with very nominal yearly fee of less than eighteen thousand. Today it is not possible for a Group A officer to admit his children in private medical colleges as the fees are exorbitantly high.
Let us examine this issue as across the length and breadth of India, an unspoken tragedy is unfolding inside middle-class homes. The desperate parents are looking at their life savings, calculating property values, and wondering if they can afford to keep their child’s dreams alive. The outrage exploding among Indian youth today is not merely about leaked question papers or compromised examinations. Those are just the visible sparks landing on a massive economic despair. Beneath the headlines lies a far deeper, more insidious crisis: the outright commercialization of higher education. A seat in a classroom—once viewed as a gateway out of poverty—has been transformed into a high-yield investment asset class. Today the education instead of realizing the dreams of the parents is being choked by the heavy ash of commercial greed.
How did a nation that built its identity on accessible public education allow its finest institutions to become playgrounds for financial privilege? Publicly funded institutions were originally established to democratize excellence using taxpayer money. Today, their fee structures reflect a sharp corporate turn, functioning under the banner of financial self-sustainability. At premier management institutes like IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Calcutta, the flagship two-year Post Graduate Program in Management fee stands at approximately ₹24.5 lakh to ₹27.5 lakh. When personal expenses, books, and living costs are added, the total bill easily pushes toward ₹30 lakh to ₹35 lakh. For a standard 4-year B. Tech degree across Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), tuition fees sit at ₹1,00,000 per semester. Once institutional fees, mess overheads, and hostel charges are factored in, a student spends ₹9.5 lakh to ₹13.9 lakh across four years. For families locked out of the hyper-competitive government medical seats, private medical colleges demand anywhere from ₹50 lakh to well over ₹1.5 crore for an undergraduate degree.
Now look at the Inequality chasm Costs vs. Average Indian Income. The paradox of India's higher education pricing becomes stark when evaluated against the economic reality of an ordinary citizen. India’s average Net Annual Per Capita Income is approximately ₹2,08,000.The tuition and program fees of an IIM MBA (₹27.5 lakh) equal more than 13 years of an average Indian's total annual gross income. A 4-year B.Tech at an IIT (₹11 lakh) consumes over 5 years of average annual earnings. A private medical seat costing ₹1 crore requires the equivalent of nearly 48 years of an average citizen's net income. To bridge this massive gap, families are forced into commercial banks where student loans carry interest rates ranging between 8.5% and 13% annually. A student enters the workforce carrying a crushing debt burden before earning their first salary. Young graduates are forced to abandon careers in basic science, public service, or entrepreneurship simply to chase high-paying corporate roles needed to service monthly EMIs. I am reminded of the then Education Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi who in the government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee questioned the fee hikes by the IIMs and IITs but in the name of autonomy he was criticized by these institutions. The question is when the government IIMs and IITs are becoming commercial and profiteering than why not the private.
Another big fraud is the so-called Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Quota. This mechanisms of quota in medical and technical institutions function as legalized fast-tracks while meritorious poor students suffer. This system allows rich candidates with significantly lower entrance ranks to purchase seats simply because they can pay three to five times the regular fee. When money buys entry while merit sits on a waiting list, the social contract between the state and its youth shatters. Though the Supreme Court of India recently slammed expanded definitions of the NRI quota as a "money-spinning tactic" and a "fraud" on merit, institutional loopholes continue to monetize education. The other countries have a stark contrast; many developed nations treat higher education as vital public infrastructure rather than a commercial enterprise. For example, in Germany the public universities charge zero tuition fees for undergraduate programs and in France, the higher education is heavily state-subsidized, with public university tuition set at nominal rates (often under €250 per year for standard degrees). In Norway, Finland, and Denmark the public universities operate under state-funded models, ensuring higher education remains a public right free from commercial exploitation. These countries understand a basic principle that an educated youth yield higher tax bases, stronger innovation, and better civic governance over a lifetime.
Learning in India is a profit-driven marketplace leading to fundamental distortions. First as denial of access to higher education at affordable cost and secondly, meritocracy is subverted and wealth replaces talent and hard work as the primary gateway to elite professions. Third families are plunged into multi-generational debt, turning higher education into a debt trap. When medical graduates pay over a crore for an MBBS, the market pressure to recover that capital inflates healthcare costs for the entire country.
I would like to earnestly request the Prime Minister and all political parties to forge a consensus on drastically reforming the education sector. A National Education Fee Task Force should be set up to assess the cost of the education first in government and private institutions by taking all parameters. A massive scheme should be launched by an Act of Parliament to make higher education accessible and affordable. The Central and State Governments, operating alongside judicial oversight, must act immediately. This task force must be legally empowered to Audit and Cap Fees, establish strict, transparent fee ceilings for all professional degrees i.e. Medical, Engineering, Management, and Law across both public and private sectors strictly to actual operational costs rather than profit margins or aggressive capital expansion. The task force must abolish monetized Quotas and eliminate commercial seats like the NRI quota in private and state institutions, ensuring seat allocation remains strictly merit-based. Further, ensure subsidize student loan interest rates for lower- and middle-income families. We must realize thar a nation that sells its classrooms to the highest bidder sells its own future. It is time to stop treating higher education as a windfall commercial enterprise and restore it as the sacred public trust. (The writer is the former IFS Officers and Chairman of Centre for Resource Management and Environment and is a policy analyst)
(Tripurainfo)
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