College boom, enrollment slump

Bhaskar Nath Biswal

India’s higher education ecosystem is undergoing a dramatic structural transformation. As the nation marches toward achieving a higher Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) under the roadmap laid out by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have multiplied across the landscape. However, a deeper examination of recent data reveals a complex narrative. While physical infrastructure and institutional capacity are expanding at an unprecedented rate, student intake patterns present an intriguing paradox.

The quantitative rise in building new colleges does not always translate seamlessly in to a linear explosion of student enrollments. Instead, the country is witnessing an asymmetrical expansion that forces us to question the balance between institutional supply and actual consumer demand. A comparative look at the data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) for academic years 2022-23 and 2023-24 highlights the widening gap between institutional expansion and student recruitment. In 2022-23, India recorded a total of 44,519 colleges, which accommodated a total enrollment of 3,12,53,597 students. Fast forward to the 2023-24 data and the aggregate number of colleges surged significantly to 46,468.

This represents an addition of nearly 2,000 new institutions within a single year. Yet, a closer look at the actual student headcounts during the same timeframe reveals a counterintuitive contraction. Total enrollment across India’s colleges dipped slightly from 3.12 crore (31.25 million) in 2022 23 to 3.11 crore (31.11 million) in 2023-24. While a net drop of roughly 1.4 lakh students nationwide might seem minor in a country of over a billion people, it points to a deeper systemic friction. We are building more classrooms, but fewer students are choosing to sit in them. The geographical distribution of this growth reveals that the expansion is heavily concentrated in a handful of states.

Uttar Pradesh continues to sit comfortably as the undisputed giant of Indian higher education. In 2022-23, the state housed 7,748 colleges with an enrollment of 59.82 lakh students. By 2023-24, its institutional footprint expanded to 8,292 colleges, keeping it at the top of the pyramid. Following closely behind is Maharashtra, which grew its college network from 5,061 institutions to 5,301, maintaining its status as a premier educational hub. Karnataka and Rajasthan occupy the third and fourth positions respectively. Karnataka increased its institutional count from 4,220 colleges to 4,280, while Rajasthan witnessed an aggressive expansion from 3,809 colleges to 4,130 within the twelve-month period. Rounding out the top five is Tamil Nadu, which maintained a strong baseline by growing its college infrastructure from 2,875 institutions to 2,933.

However, even within these high-growth states, the enrollment trends mirrored the national struggle, showing plateaus or subtle declines that challenge the sustainability of such rapid brick-and-mortar replication. The core explanation lies in a massive structural pivot toward private unaided institutions, contrasted with a sharp rationalisation and contraction within government-funded sectors. The data demonstrates that the rise in colleges is almost entirely fueled by the private unaided sector, which leaped from 29,402 institutions in 2022-23 to 32,513 in 2023-24. Correspondingly, enrollment within these private unaided entities rose from 1.45 crore to 1.57 crore. Conversely, government colleges experienced a noticeable contraction. The total number of government colleges dropped from 9,272 to 7,944, and government college enrollments experienced a sharp slide from 1.03 crore down to 88.85 lakh. This shift indicates a broader privatisation of higher education across India. The lessons of the 2022-2023 data trajectory are clear: India can no longer rely on a ‘build it, and they will come’ philosophy for its higher education policy. To bridge the gap between infrastructure and actual enrollment, future policy must pivot from quantitative expansion to qualitative consolidation.

Regulatory bodies should implement strict er checks on the proliferation of sub-standard private institutions to prevent a glut of vacant seats and low-value degrees. Concurrently, government colleges require urgent reinvestment, curriculum modernisation and infrastructural upgrading to reclaim their role as the primary accessible pathway for higher education. Ultimately, the success of India’s demographic dividend depends not on how many college walls we construct but on the tangible value, skill and global employability generated within those walls.

The writer is a former college Principal and Founder of Supporting Shoulders.