Private universities with foreign students ...

... right here in India!

It does sound wonderful, but it also sounds impossible, no? In today's Business Standard, T.C.A. Srinivasa-Raghavan has a column, in which he explores the topic of the large number of Indians who go to the US to study. He covers a lot of ground, and I covered some of it here. But we seem to have similar ideas (on this issue, at least!). He says:

... if only the government here would let go and let private universities find their own level via the market, India can become a leading exporter not of undergraduates but of undergraduate teaching.

And, this is what I said:

When such a university is set up, who knows, it may even attract lots of foreign students (and some foreign faculty too!), offering everyone an international flavour and experience right here in India.

So, I am in broad agreement with what he says. What's the point?

There is nothing, really. Except to point out an important error in the article by Srinivasa-Raghavan: he quotes a figure of "nearly 75,000" for the number of Indian students who went to the US last year. He is wrong on this.

That figure is for the total number of students who were in US universities last year. The number of students who leave for the US every year is obtained by dividing that figure (nearly 75,000) by the weighted average number of years that a student spends in the universities there.