Quantity of education is growing in India — but with asymmetries

These achievements underscore the success of sustained public investment, affirmative policies, and institutional expansion over the years. Although GER has increased to 30 per cent, India remains well below enrolment levels in many developed and emerging economies, where participation rates often exceed 50 or 60 per cent. Achieving the NEP target of 50 per cent GER by 2035 will require substantially faster expansion along with improved student retention and completion. National averages presented in AISHE also conceal considerable regional disparities. Southern and western states generally report much higher enrolment ratios than many northern and eastern states. Significant differences continue to exist between urban and rural areas and among districts within states. These inequalities indicate that access to higher education remains uneven despite overall national progress.

The asymmetries

The AISHE confirms that Indian higher education has entered an era of massification. Rising enrolment and institutional expansion, however, conceal several structural asymmetries that have significant implications for equity, quality, financing, and governance. Rather than reflecting a balanced expansion of the higher education system, the data point to five interrelated imbalances that merit closer policy attention.

The first asymmetry concerns the overwhelming dominance of private provisioning. Of the 46,468 colleges reporting to AISHE, only 17.1 per cent are government institutions, while nearly 83 per cent belong to the private sector, with unaided colleges alone accounting for 70 per cent of all colleges. Correspondingly, private institutions enrol over 71 per cent of all college students. This pattern reflects the state’s gradual withdrawal from direct expansion of higher education, leaving capacity creation largely to private providers. While private investment has undoubtedly expanded access, it has also shifted a substantial share of educational costs to households. More importantly, the growing reliance on private institutions raises questions about affordability, regional disparities, faculty quality, and regulatory oversight. Expansion without commensurate public investment risks reinforcing socio-economic inequalities, particularly in states where public higher education remains underdeveloped.

A second asymmetry is evident in the composition of enrolment across levels and disciplines. Undergraduate education accounts for over three-fourths of total enrolment, whereas postgraduate education represents less than 13 per cent. Within undergraduate education, Bachelor of Arts programmes alone account for nearly two-fifths of total enrolment, substantially exceeding engineering, commerce, and science. A similar pattern is visible at the postgraduate level, where Master of Arts programmes dominate. This concentration reflects both institutional incentives and student constraints. Arts programmes require relatively modest infrastructure investments and therefore proliferate more easily, particularly within private colleges. At the same time, financial constraints and uneven labour market opportunities discourage progression to postgraduate education. The persistence of this pattern raises concerns about graduate employability and the limited diversification of India’s knowledge economy, even as women now outnumber men at the postgraduate level.

The third asymmetry relates to doctoral education and research priorities. Although science and engineering together account for nearly 44 per cent of PhD enrolment, the social sciences account for only around 11 per cent. This imbalance reflects the unequal distribution of research funding, infrastructure, and fellowship opportunities rather than differences in societal importance. India’s contemporary developmental challenges—including urbanisation, inequality, labour markets, climate change, and governance — require strong social science research capacity. Yet, the relatively low enrolment in these disciplines suggests that research financing remains skewed towards STEM fields. Unless public funding mechanisms become more balanced, India’s research ecosystem may continue to underinvest in evidence generation for public policy and institutional reform.

AISHE also reveals an important institutional asymmetry within the university sector. State public universities continue to account for the largest share of university enrolment, but state private universities and open universities together enrol nearly half of all university students. This marks a significant transformation in the structure of higher education provision. The rapid expansion of private universities has broadened access but simultaneously intensified concerns regarding quality assurance, governance standards, and commercialisation. Equally significant is the increasing role of open universities, reflecting the growing demand for flexible learning among working adults and non-traditional learners. These developments necessitate a regulatory architecture that focuses not merely on institutional approvals but also on learning outcomes, graduate employability, and academic accountability.

Finally, the survey highlights the growing significance of alternative modes of learning. Around 44 lakh students are enrolled through distance education, with undergraduate programmes accounting for nearly two-thirds of this enrolment. Distance education now constitutes a substantial share of total university enrolment, complemented by growing participation in online programmes. While these modes have considerably widened educational access, especially for women, working professionals, and geographically disadvantaged learners, they also pose serious quality assurance challenges. Ensuring academic integrity, improving digital infrastructure, strengthening learner support systems, and maintaining comparable learning outcomes will become increasingly important as flexible learning expands under the National Education Policy.

The missing metrics of merit

The absence of graduate outcome indicators is a major weakness of AISHE, as it does not systematically collect information on graduate employment and earnings. In an economy increasingly concerned about graduate unemployment and skill mismatch, this omission significantly limits the survey’s usefulness. Further, AISHE relies predominantly on self-reported institutional data submitted through an online portal, and there is limited independent verification of the information provided, affecting data consistency across states and institutions. Another persistent concern is the timeliness of publication. The release of the 2022-23 and 2023-24 reports only in July 2026 illustrates the continuing lag between data collection and publication.

The AISHE 2026 presents a broadly positive picture of India’s higher education sector, characterised by expanding enrolment, improved gender parity, growing STEM participation, and wider institutional coverage. However, the expansion of educational capacity should not be confused with improvement in educational quality, as the survey continues to measure capacity rather than capability, inputs rather than outcomes, and expansion rather than excellence. Importantly, the evolving asymmetries suggest that India’s higher education system has successfully expanded in quantitative terms but remains uneven in institutional ownership, programme composition, research orientation, and modes of delivery. Future reforms must therefore move beyond increasing enrolment towards addressing questions of public investment, research financing, regulatory capacity, and educational quality. Without correcting these structural imbalances, the objectives of equity, excellence, and global competitiveness envisaged under the National Education Policy are unlikely to be fully realised.

M Suresh Babu is Director, Madras Institute of Development Studies. The views expressed are personal