India sees 13.8% rise in higher education institutes: Dharmendra Pradhan

New Delhi: The number of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) witnessed a remarkable 13.8 per cent increase, rising from 51,534 institutions in 2014-15 to an impressive 58,643 in 2022-23. The data was given by Minister Dharmendra Pradhan while highlighting the progress in Higher Education under the Ministry of Education to the media in New Delhi.

Here are the highlights:

1. Expansion of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with a focus on improving access to higher education:

Enhanced Access: Total HEIs increased by 13.8% from 51,534 in 2014-15 to 58,643 in 2022-23.

University Growth: Universities grew by 59.6%, from 760 to 1,213, showcasing India’s commitment to world-class institutions.

College Growth: Colleges increased by 21.1%, from 38,498 to 46,624, meeting the growing demand for higher education.

Centrally Funded Institutions: 42 new institutions, including 8 Central Universities, 7 IITs, 8 IIMs, 2 IISERs & IISC, 1 NITs & IIEST, and 16 IIITs, were added from 2014 to 2024.

2. Growth in Student Enrolment:

Enrolment Surge: Total enrolment rose by 30.5%, from 3.42 crore in 2014-15 to 4.46 crore in 2022-23.

Empowering Women: Female enrolment grew by 38.4% from 1.57 crore to 2.18 crore contributing to the gender parity, with significant gains of about 23% in STEM courses, rising from 35.14 lakh to 43.03 lakh.

3. Mission Recruitment:

The government recruited 52,482 candidates from May 2014 to October 2024, more than twice of previous decade’s recruitment done i.e., 23,463.

4. One Nation One Subscription (ONOS):

The government has approved a new Central Sector Scheme, One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) for students, faculty, researchers and scientists of all disciplines of Higher Educational Institutions under the management of the Central or State Government.

The "One Nation One Subscription" initiative aims to promote both core and interdisciplinary research by providing access to over 13,000 e-journals from 30 leading international publishers. A total of about Rs 6,000 crore has been allocated for the scheme for three calendar years, 2025, 2026 and 2027.

5. Centres of Excellence in AI:

Three Centres of Excellence focusing on health, sustainable cities, and agriculture have been approved, with a financial outlay of Rs 990 crore (2023-24 to 2027-28).

Research Parks Established in HEIs to promote a research ecosystem and Industry-Academia Connect.

Before 2014: The IIT Madras Research Park was founded in 2008 and Research Parks at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay, were also approved.

After 2014: The government established six new Research Parks, one each at IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati, IIT Hyderabad, IISc Bangalore and IIT Gandhinagar. Further, 13 more Research Parks will be set up at IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Roorkee, IIT (BHU), IIT(ISM) Dhanbad, IIT Ropar, IIT Jodhpur, IIT Patna and IIT Indore, IIT Palakkad, IIT Tirupati, IIT Dharwad, IIT Jammu and IIT Bhilai

Promotion of Multilingualism National Level Entrance Examinations for admission to HEIs like JEE (Main), NEET(UG), and CUET(UG) is conducted in 13 Languages, i.e. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Odia, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.

6. Academic Bank of Credit:

Launched in July 2021 2,247 HEIs were registered, and 1 crore student IDs were mapped with more than 2 crore records.

SWAYAM: This system was launched on July 9, 2017, more than 3,800 courses were developed and 4.7 crore enrolments have been made since its inception. To enhance the employability of students, SWAYAM Plus has been launched in February 2024.320 courses have been developed in collaboration with 55 leading Industry partners.

SAMARTH: This software is used to digitize higher education campuses. More than 12,000 HEIs have adopted this solution. In the current semester, 46 lakh students are enrolled and availing of the facility.

SATHEE: This was started in 2023 in collaboration with IIT Kanpur to provide free coaching classes for competitive examinations. SATHEE provides support for Engineering, Medical, SSC, Banking, and Agriculture and for university entrance examinations, esp. CUET.

7. Rankings:

NIRF: Launched in 2016, the number of applications increased from 3,565 in 2016 to 10,845 in 2024. The number of institutions increased from 2,426 in 2016 to 6,517 in 2024

QS Ranking: In QS WUR 2025, 46 Indian HEIs were ranked compared to just 11 in the 2015 edition, a 318% increase in the last 10 years.

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) has ranked top-most among the Indian institutions and has significantly improved its ranking, climbing from 149th position in the 2024 to 118th in the 2025 QS World University Rankings.

8. Book Promotion:

There has been a substantive increase in the footfall in the National Book Fair organized by the Ministry of Education. In 2014, the footfall was 4 lakhs, which has seen exponential growth and now it has reached 19 lakhs in 2024.

9. Smart India Hackathon: This initiative was started in 2017 and over 2 lakh teams and approx. 14 lakh students have participated since inception. Team participation has increased, from 7,531 in 2017 to 49,892 in 2024, a 7-fold increase. During the same period, ideas submitted have also seen exponential growth from 7,500 to 57,000 (approx. 8-fold increase).