The Education Business

When business runs in our blood, we get tempted to see and perceive everything from the money angle. Such has not been the case atleast in India, from where your's truly hails. There seems to be clear and distinct segmentation of sectors where profit seeking is considered ethical and Education is excluded from this list. Education has always been considered a noble task and hence the motive for profits has been shunned consciously. This has led to a situation wherein even sadly enough, premier educational institutions like Indian Institute of Science,Technology as well as Management have to depend on Government funds for their survival.

Contrast this with the United States, the premier provider of higher education in the world. Its interesting to see that here, private universities like Harvard & Stanford have been able to thrive and rank as of the best universitites in the world in spite of zero government funding. While its a known fact that these universities enjoy huge grants and endowments which make them to carry out such pioneering research, a less known fact is the ability to attract top talent is also due to the fact that they resort to Grade-Inflation. Reports indicate that Harvard awards A grades(highest grade possible in a course) to nearly 50 % of the class. Why do they do this ? One reason why they do this is due to the fact that those who study there come from affluent families and from the university's point of view, it makes lot of horse-sense to be in the good books of these influential who's who. The generous grades also accrue a lot of positive vibes and referral about the college's experience amongst other siblings in the family. Its ultimately a simple business truth that dawns upon us that its the wealthy family who fill the coffers of these colleges. And based on the succeses achieved by their children, some families go on to bequeath their fortunes for generous grants and research endowments. Thus, its a typical case of soft-power that these colleges extend on the aristocratic and it definitely takes a long period of time for building and maintaining this reputation. This partly explains the generous award of Grades as detailed in this article. In fact, this article humorously justifies the grade-inflation as "Business as Usual ".

Its time that India draws a leaf out of this American experience of having a "for-profit" motive in the Education sector. It should done with the objective of self-sustenance and minimising external funding dependancies and hence this motive is worth emulating.