Making scholarships integral to India’s academic culture

Making scholarships integral to India’s academic culture

If India is to take its Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education to 50%, the question is not only how many institutions the country can build, but who is actually able to walk through their gates and graduate.

India has been making gradual progress to expand capacity; the number of higher educational institutions has grown from 51,534 (2014-15) to over 70,000 last year, as per the 2025-26 Economic Survey. Yet the national GER stands at 29.5 (2022-23). Such limited participation highlights that seats alone do not create students. Education transforms lives when access, affordability, and academic quality come together. For many young Indians, especially in second-and third-tier towns, the binding constraint is not aspiration; it is the cost and risk of participation. This is why scholarships cannot remain a peripheral add-on to the system. They need to be designed, and tailored as an integral and embedded pathway into higher education.

A pressing need

The country is witnessing three intersecting challenges. There is an access challenge across regions and social groups; an affordability challenge that turns higher education into a long-term investment for families; and a quality challenge that determines whether and to what extent enrolment translates into true learning and occupational pursuit. Enrolment rises when those who qualify can afford to participate, and when institutions are confident that diversity and merit will strengthen, not dilute, academic life.

India knows this well: there is a lot of talent that is widely distributed, but with no opportunity. Increasing enrolments will depend less on convincing already advantaged families and more on releasing the pool of capable students who are currently held back by cost, distance, and uncertainty about the benefits of enrolment. Scholarships sit precisely at this hinge point. They are not only instruments of financial support; they can also mould a student’s life, ensuring academic fulfilment as well as overall individual enhancement through provisions beyond material aid, such as leadership development, exposure to a wider world of interests, and career guidance.

The Department of Higher Education supports students through scholarships, interest subsidies on education loans, and credit guarantees. The National Scholarship Portal functions as a common window for State schemes, and hosts information on scholarship programmes across ministries, departments and regulatory bodies. One such programme is the Central Sector Scheme of Scholarship for College and University Students that provides up to 82,000 scholarships each year across undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional courses. Alongside this, corporate foundations, trusts, and non-profits have also created well-known programmes, often focused on merit-cum-means in fields such as engineering and management.

While this is meaningful progress, most scholarships are limited in number, and are still treated as financial plug-ins. The deeper question is whether scholarships can become a pathway which students actively opt into not only for financial reasons, but also for academic community and mentorship.

Lessons from history

India’s own history should be the first source of inspiration. In the ancient institution of higher learning, Takshashila, students were known to have had as many as five options to pay their education fees: pay up front; work with and learn from the teachers; defer and pay after graduation; receive scholarships from home regions; or rely on support from a charitable community for disadvantaged students. The principle was straightforward — ability should not be turned away for lack of means, and that institutions should find ways to welcome talent.

The opportunity before India is not only to improve scholarships, but to reimagine what a scholarship represents. One can imagine scholarships that are designed as multi-year commitments rather than annual renewals, giving students the confidence to plan their academic lives with a certain stability. Institutional density and enrolment can be studied in order to design region-based scholarships that focus on underserved States and districts. One can also imagine programme-specific pathways that link scholarships to areas of national and regional need. A scholarship attached to a vocational degree in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, or healthcare, anchored in a district with low participation but high demand, could raise enrolment while strengthening skills and employability.

Public policy and regulation can gently encourage this shift. Incentives such as tax benefits for endowments, or matching funds through private philanthropy, can attract long-term capital into scholarships that are designed to grow and sustain. Performance-linked frameworks can recognise and reward institutions that demonstrate outcomes across merit, need, and potential. India already has early examples of what such thinking can look like. Ashoka University evaluates financial aid independently of academic admission, following a need-sensitive process where a student’s ability to pay is assessed separately from the admission decision. About 20% students receive free education owing to a 100% scholarship, and roughly half of the students receive some form of financial support, while maintaining strong academic standards. The Indian School of Business (ISB) has built a donor-supported scholarship ecosystem across categories that reflect merit and need, including support for those from the armed forces and those who are returning to the development sector. Every year, the ISB awards between 250 and 280 scholarships across its programmes, and notably, 40% of the founding class of the recently launched PGP-Young Leaders programme is supported by scholarships. In both cases, scholarships are not an afterthought. They are critical to the kind of academic community these institutions are trying to build.

International experience reinforces the point. Whether it be multidisciplinary scholarship programmes at U.S. universities or provincial and city-level scholarships in China aligned to local development priorities, the most effective systems treat scholarships as a core part of their academic cultures.

From the margins to the centre

India still needs to expand and diversify its higher educational system. But expansion alone will not deliver a 50% enrolment ratio that also deepens learning and social mobility. Meaningful absorption can only happen when capable students are supported and inspired to look ahead, regardless of where they come from.

This is not a narrow funding conversation; it is about building an ecosystem. Scholarships sit at the intersection of equity, quality, and growth. They influence who and how many enter higher education, and who persists. They shape the social and intellectual life of campuses and the credibility of institutions. They also contribute to the nation’s trajectory, throwing light on how its talent is discovered, understood, and developed.

If the goal is not only more students, but also more mobility and national capability, then scholarships deserve to move from the margins to the centre of our higher education strategy.

Scholarships sit at the intersection of equity, quality, and growth. They influence who and how many enter higher education, and who persists