January 30, 2009

Rapid Expansion Strains Elite Indian Institutes

Professors ask how a top-tier system can be nearly doubled in little more than a year

By SHAILAJA NEELAKANTAN

In India's beleaguered higher-education system, the Indian Institutes of Technology stand apart. The seven institutions have turned out some of the world's finest engineers and computer scientists, eagerly recruited by top graduate schools in the United States. Many of the institutes' graduates have gone on to become the chief executives of American companies or have fueled India's information-technology boom.

But their international status may soon be threatened. In what many