India’s Top-Ranked Non-Autonomous ASC Colleges 2024-25

In this year’s private non-autonomous colleges league table, St. Stephen’s College, tied to the apron strings of Delhi University — a Central government institution — retains its #1 status. Several nationally acclaimed Arts, Science and Commerce (ASC) undergrad colleges are in the same boat Like God, government moves in mysterious ways. Any well-educated and well-informed individual will readily concede that St. Stephen’s College, Delhi (estb.1881) is by far and away India’s most admired/best Arts, Science and Commerce (ASC) undergrad college countrywide. Certainly the several thousand sample respondents drawn from academia, industry and students communities interviewed for the annual EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings (EWIHER) year after year seem to think so. Ab initio since the annual EWIHER was introduced in 2013, St. Stephen’s has been voted India’s #1 ASC college. Since 2020 when ASC colleges were divided by your editors into Private Autonomous, Government Autonomous and Private Non-autonomous categories for ranking purposes (to eliminate apples with oranges type comparisons), St. Stephen’s has consolidated its numero uno position in the EW national league table of Private ASC Non-autonomous colleges. However in the NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) 2024 of the Union education ministry, St. Stephen’s is ranked a modest #14. That’s the mystery. Last year on this very page your editors had speculated why St. Stephen’s has not been awarded autonomous status for which it applied five years ago. Even though the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 explicitly recommends that excellent colleges should be awarded autonomy and encouraged to transform into degree awarding universities in their own right. At that time drawing on information derived from the academia grapevine, we opined that the neta-babu brotherhood which has controlled and commanded Indian education — especially higher education — with iron grip, is reluctant to surrender its powers of control and patronage over India’s finest higher education institutions that provide excellent learning at heavily subsidized tuition (and residential accommodation) prices. Under the status quo their powers of patronage are massive. Unsurprisingly there is no change in St. Stephen’s official status and it continues to remain a Private Non-autonomous college tied to the apron strings of Delhi University — a Central government funded institution. Several nationally acclaimed ASC undergrad colleges such as Miranda House, Sri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College, Hindu College, Sri Ventakaswara College — all affiliated with Delhi University — are in the same boat. Indeed of the country’s Top 10 private non-autonomous ASC colleges, eight are affiliated with Delhi University, indicative of the heavy subsidization of the varsity by the Central government. In the Union budget 2024-25, Rs.15,928 crore has been allocated for Central government universities (apart from IITs and NITs). An estimated 30 percent of this amount is for Delhi University (DU) and its constituent colleges where tuition fees are less than half paid by college students in neighbouring China. For several years EducationWorld has been advocating means-tested, targeted — instead of universally subsidised — tuition fees in higher education which would increase the income flow of…