India attracts US universities

[Harold F. Schiffman]

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March 26, 2007

India Attracts Universities From the U.S.

By SOMINI SENGUPTA CHENNAI, India

It was an unusual university entrance interview. Late one recent evening
here in steamy southern India, Vijay Muddana sat in a mercilessly
air-conditioned room, leaning forward in his chair and talking to the
wall. There, projected on a screen via videoconferencing equipment, were
administrators from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where an
early morning snowstorm had caused a power failure, delaying the
interviews by an hour. The Indians found it funny that even in Pittsburgh,
there were power failures. Mr. Muddana, 21, was among a dozen ambitious
young Indians hoping to get a graduate degree in information technology
offered jointly by Carnegie Mellon and a small private college here.

The exchange was one of the many ways in which American universities,
eager to expand to markets abroad, are training their sights on India.
Some 40 percent of the population is under 18, and a scarcity of higher
education opportunities is frequently cited as a potential hurdle to
economic progress. The American universities are just testing the waters,
because the law here is still vague on how foreign educational
institutions can operate.  But that may soon change. [The Bush
administrations envoy for public diplomacy, Karen P. Hughes, is visiting
India this week with a half-dozen American university presidents to
promote Brand America in Indian education. The United States wants an
easing of rules under a draft law on foreign investment in Indian
education, which is to be introduced in Parliament in April.]

If the law is approved, foreign institutions would be exempt from strict
rules that currently apply to all government-accredited universities in
India on fees, staff salaries and curriculums. The government has already
proposed setting up an expert committee to review the standards and
reputation of foreign universities that want to establish independent
campuses here. The growing American interest in Indian education reflects
a confluence of trends. It comes as American universities are trying to
expand their global reach in general, and discovering Indias economic rise
in particular. It also reflects the need for India to close its gaping
demand for higher education.

Among Indians ages 18 to 24, only 7 percent enter a university, according
to the National Knowledge Commission, which advises the prime ministers
office on higher education. To roughly double that percentage effectively
bringing it up to par with the rest of Asia the commission recommends the
creation of 1,500 colleges and universities over the next several years.
Indias public universities are often woefully underfinanced and
strike-prone. Indians are already voting with their feet: the commission
estimates that 160,000 Indians are studying abroad, spending an estimated
$4 billion a year. Indians and Chinese make up the largest number of
foreign students in the United States.

Madeleine Green, vice president for international initiatives at the
American Council on Education, calls India the next frontier for American
institutions, many of which have already set up base in China. The pull
factor is the interest of India and the opportunity that India now
presents, she said. The push is from American institutions saying, Theres
a world out there and we need to discover it. Itll make our grads more
competitive. Its part of their push to internationalize.

At the moment, however, instead of setting up satellite campuses as was
done in China, Singapore or Qatar, most American institutions are opting
to join hands with existing Indian institutions. Columbia Business School,
for instance, started a student exchange program earlier this year with
the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad.  The institutions teamed
up to write case materials devised to teach American students about doing
business in India.

For us its market access; for them its access to a bigger business school,
said R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School. Columbia is the
latest of several foreign business schools to tie up with the Ahmedabad
campus, reflecting what its director, Bakul Dholakia, sees as a growing
appetite to train future executives about India. Companies out there need
managers now who have a unique Asian perspective, he said. The
Americanization of Indian education is following a variety of approaches.
Champlain College, based in Burlington, Vt., runs a satellite campus in
Mumbai that offers degrees in one of three career-oriented subjects that
college administrators have found to be attractive to Indians: business,
hospitality industry management and software engineering. A 2005 study
commissioned by the government found at least 131 foreign educational
institutions operating in India at the time, a vast majority offering
vocational courses.

However, Champlains degrees are not recognized by the Indian government,
something that is still typical here. One government official who looks
after private education estimated that at least 100,000 students graduated
from entirely unaccredited private institutions. The study found that
students did not consider unaccredited college degrees to be a hindrance
to getting jobs in the private sector. California State University, Long
Beach, has agreed to help start American-style, four-year degree programs
at state-run Lucknow University in northern India. Its vice chancellor, R.
P. Singh, said the California institution would help draft the curriculum
and train faculty.

Cornell University, whose president is among the American university
officials visiting India in recent months, is seeking to expand research
collaborations, particularly in agriculture and public health. Rice
University envisions faculty and student exchanges, particularly in
technology. Whats in it for us is opportunities for our students,
opportunities for our faculty in terms of research collaboration, said
David Leebron, the university president, who was in India in February. At
this stage we think we are best served by developing partnerships with
Indian institutions.

For its part, Carnegie Mellon offers its degree in partnership with a
small private institution here, the Shri Shiv Shankar Nadar College of
Engineering. Most of the course work is done at relatively inexpensive
rates here in India, followed by six months in Pittsburgh, at the end of
which students graduate with a Carnegie Mellon degree. The arrangement
circumvents most of the usual Indian government restrictions. The
curriculum is devised in partnership with Carnegie Mellon, and students
are chosen jointly by faculty from both schools.

There are no affirmative action requirements for student admissions, as
there are in accredited colleges. Fees are not regulated by the state. It
is expensive by Indian standards, though nearly all of the students are
subsidized by scholarships financed by Shiv Nadar, the colleges founder
and chief executive of HCL Technologies, one of Indias leading technology
companies. The applicants on the recent evening in Chennai were eager to
please the gatekeepers from Pittsburgh. They addressed them politely with
a series of yes, sirs. Asked what they could contribute to Carnegie
Mellon, some of them became flummoxed. One young man said he wanted to
develop software designed for the global citizen, by which he meant a way
to transfer money across continents using a mobile phone.

Mr. Muddana, who had a bachelors degree in information technology and had
spent the past eight months as a software developer for an Indian firm,
said he saw the program as a cost-effective ticket to an American degree
and a chance to work for a few years in the United States.

His father, he said, failed to grasp his ambitions. Why would he quit a
secure, well-paying job to go back to school, his father wanted to know.
Mr. Muddana said his father taught at a government school in a rural
district in neighboring Andhra Pradesh State. He earns today roughly what
his son makes fresh out of college. Mr. Muddana said his father was
bewildered by his dreams and by how much it would cost to get a masters
degree.

Hes presently thinking only of the investment, Mr. Muddana said, not the
outcome.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/world/asia/26india.html