Who gets left behind? The fate of the unrepresented in the wake of US-India higher education partnerships

• In Event: Higher Education in South Asia

Abstract

Objectives
Indian students are the largest contingent of international students entering the US with a growth rate of nearly 37% over the past decade (Bhandari & Choudaha, 2010). Nonetheless, there remain nearly 370 million young people between the ages of 6-23 currently residing in India (Marmelejo, 2012) and it appears that the demand for higher education will continue to outpace the supply. The gap between supply and demand has not gone unnoticed by Indian higher education officials or US-based university administrators. There has been growing interest in developing partnerships of various kinds to fill this need. US administrators are keen to develop partnerships with India, seeing rich research opportunities, burgeoning talent pools and untapped tuition dollars. In globalized India, there is a cachet in being intimately attached or associated with US institutions leading to both governments to develop policies for what should appear to be mutually beneficial partnerships. This paper addresses the ways higher education policies systematically universalize the marginalization of certain students, explores the impact of how policies of partnerships will address the needs of such students, and seeks to explore how administrators in higher education institutions see the growth of such partnerships shifting the status quo of privilege and power.

Conceptual Framework
In 2011-2012, the US and India began a series of meetings that engaged the two countries in “more purposeful…sustainable partnerships between higher education institutions in both countries” (Fischer, 2012, n.p.). In this bilateral relationship, key areas of growth include workforce training, student exchange, access to education through technology, and joint research opportunities (Fischer, 2012). Motivations for partnerships include the desire to “enhance research and knowledge capacity and to increase cultural understanding” (Altbach & Knight, 2007) and due to the dramatic shortage in higher education opportunities for students in India, includes an awareness of the potential profits involved in developing partnerships (Knight, 2004)

While only twelve percent of the college-age population is enrolled in a higher education program in India (Fischer, 2012), international HEIs are strategizing on how to meet the need and situate themselves to be well regarded in India. Curricular joint ventures (CJVs) are one direction for such partnerships. Universities are striving to show enrollment growth, and the international education arena is increasingly seen as a space to mimic the strategies streamlined in corporate partnerships where students of today are merely employees of tomorrow. As a result, the bare necessities of training are provided, and the old fashioned notions of a ‘well-rounded education’ become too expensive and are subsequently left behind. The contextual framework addresses the current situation of higher education in India, the marginalization of its students the growing practice of developing partnerships between universities located in different countries and the impact such partnerships have on economics and education. The theories that inform these areas of policy provide a foundation to explore how such programs reach all students, what reactions and beliefs do administrators in India feel about the nature of these partnerships in meeting the needs of marginalized students and how do motives of profit and growth affect students who have limited means and limited access?

Methods
Through the evaluation of policy papers, historical documents, media reports, survey data and interviews with Indian administrators, the findings will address the underlying consequences and effects on higher education policy development in India.

Findings
The results center on an awareness of the tension between profits and education; the growing discrepancy between education for economic growth and individual empowerment; and the dichotomies between the needs of the US and Indian partners, all of which relate directly to the impact of higher education partnerships on marginalized students.

Significance
For India, higher education is no longer a luxury to be considered by a few policy makers as building a small cadre of middle class professionals. Quality of education at the basic and secondary levels will impact higher education, but those who are currently on the margins of society – the majority of the country at this moment, will be unsatisfied and unwilling to wait patiently for their chance for educational attainment. This paper offers an analysis on how these issues disproportionally affect marginalized students and makes the case that for more equitable development of higher education through partnerships, policy makers would be well advised to think through how to evolve from rhetoric to action of equity and opportunity.

Author

• Supriya Baily, George Mason University