May 20, 2008

American Universities Under Pressure to Develop More Programs in India

New Delhi — As more American college students become interested in studying in India, universities in the United States are under pressure to increase their number of exchange programs with higher-education institutions in India, said David C. Mulford, the U.S. ambassador to India, a local newspaper reported today.

“Young people [in particular] are fascinated by India,” Mr. Mulford said, addressing the news media in the southern city of Chennai on Monday. He said that awareness of India in the United States was growing, thanks in part to the strong Indian community there.

Mr. Mulford said there were 84,000 Indian students in the United States, but only 1,700 American students in India.

“We have a trade imbalance here,” he said, adding that student-visa applications from India were growing by 30 percent each year.

Mr. Mulford said American universities were interested in expanding their ties to India, not just by bringing more Indian students to the United States, but also through the exchange of students and professors.

“Down the road, U.S. universities are going to be looking at many models of co-operation, including joint award of degrees,” Mr. Mulford said. —Shailaja Neelakantan

Comments

1. Three years ago, Purdue launched its “Asian Initiative” designed to strengthen our ties with both China and India. In terms of research collaborations (many involving our students) we have made great progress with our Indian colleagues. We’ve been less successful with study abroad, however, primarily because of the low absorptive capacity of many Indian universities. Semester exchanges will work in most places, but the typical short-term US program that sends twenty or so students to an institution for three to six weeks doesn’t work for many of our partners. We’re continuing to work on this, however. For the moment, though, research partnerships with India are growing fast on our campus.

   — Riall Nolan    May 20, 09:12 AM    #

2. Better to set up American Universities in India and China, like British and Australian Universities are doing. To balance the trade deficit we can set up American Universities in India and China. Then we do not need to have so many come here and taking up places which could be used by American high school students who have been refused entrance and/or financial aide. It is really sad that we are not educating our own.

   — Karl    May 20, 06:49 PM    #

3. I noticed this strong student interest in studyng in India with the last applicant pool we had at the University of Chicago for the David L. Boren National Security Education Program Undergraduate Scholarship competition that just completed. Five of our fourteen applicants were to India. I also spoke to several students about their academic interests in India when advising on this scholarship opportunity.

   — David Comp    May 20, 10:50 PM    #

4. University of Hyderabad has launched a successful Study in India Program, which attracts more than 100 US students every year. Some students come for a semester and some only for six weeks in summer. This is an experiment in international cooperation through the class rooms.

   — Prakash C. Sarangi    May 21, 12:31 AM    #

5. Students from Brooklyn College CUNY have been coming for the past two years to do joint documentary film projects in our Academy. From Spring ’09 we are also going to get students from Arcadia University to study at our Academy for a semester to begin with. In the meanwhile we get scores of American students visiting Chennai on floating universities. Honestly I feel that the time has come for reversing the knowledge flow!

   — k. hariharan    May 21, 06:07 AM    #

6. I have a great idea. Perhaps we could train U.S. citizens to answer service calls for companies in India.

   — Gary Brooks    May 21, 12:00 PM    #

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