Uttar Pradesh has the most colleges in the country, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka, according to the All India Survey for Higher Education (AISHE) 2020-21.
According to the survey, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana and Kerala are among the top 10 states in terms of the number of colleges in India, each having at least 29 or more colleges per 1,000 population. There are 8,114 colleges in Uttar Pradesh and there are 32 colleges for every lakh inhabitant, the report added.
“Similarly, Maharashtra ranks second with 4,532 colleges and 34 colleges per lakh population. Karnataka ranks third with 4,233 colleges and 62 colleges per lakh population while Rajasthan ranks fourth with 3,694 colleges and 40 colleges per lakh population. Tamil Nadu ranks fifth with 2,667 colleges and has a college density of 40,” the report said.
Madhya Pradesh ranks sixth with 2,610 colleges and 29 colleges per lakh population while Andhra Pradesh ranks seventh with 2,601 colleges and 49 colleges per lakh population. In eighth place, Gujarat has 2,267 colleges and 31 colleges for every 1 lakh population.
In addition, the survey report indicated that most colleges only offer programs at the undergraduate level. Only 2.9 percent of universities have PhD-level programs and 55.2 percent offer postgraduate-level programs.
“There are 35.8% of colleges that only offer single programs, of which 82.2% are privately administered. Among them, 30.9% of colleges only offer B.Ed courses. The majority of colleges are smaller in terms of enrollment. 23.6% of colleges have fewer than 100 students and 48.5% of colleges have enrollment between 100 and 500, meaning that 65.1% of colleges have fewer than 500 students enrolled.
“Only 4% of colleges have more than 3,000 enrollments. Of the 41,600 responding universities, 8,903 (21.4%) are public universities, 5,658 (13.3%) private (supported) and 27,039 (65%) private (unsupported),” it said.
The AISHE survey published by the Ministry of Education collects detailed information on various parameters such as student enrollment, teacher data, infrastructure information, financial information, among others. It covers all higher education institutions located in Indian territory and providing higher education in the country.
In AISHE 2020-21, for the first time, higher education institutions (HEIs) filled in the data online using the Web Data Capture Format (DCF) developed by the Department of Higher Education with help from the National Informatics Center (NIC).
With inputs from PTI
