The higher the degree of alumni control in a university, the higher its ranking, said Prof Shailendra Mehta, Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Duke Corporate Education. This is because it is the alumni who value the university the most, he added.
There are two key criteria to determine the success of any university, he said. First, it has to be a not-for-profit set-up.
“They can be private but not for profit,” said Prof Mehta, at the FICCI Higher Education Summit.
Second, the university has to be controlled by its alumni.
An analysis of the global rankings of educational institutes shows that the majority at the top were from the US.
According to the Shanghai Jiao Tong Rankings 2010, 17 of the top 20 universities were from the US, with UC Berkeley, Stanford and MIT following Harvard, which was top-most. Again, of the top 20 US universities, 19 are controlled by alumni and the top five have 100 per cent alumni control.
“Who has the most stake in a university doing well? The people who value it the most — the alumni. For, the college you go to determines the kind of person you will be and your network of influence,” said Prof Mehta.
Harvard has almost always been controlled by its alumni, barring a few years. Most universities from Yale to Columbia followed suit.
The other criteria that play a role in determining a university's success are national wealth, large population, private philanthropy and unitary governance, he added.
Dr Jonathan Adams, Director of Research Evaluation, Thomson Reuters, said India should reject the bubble reputation if it wants its universities to grow. Universities are complex organisations and cannot be reduced to a single index. There should be appropriate benchmarks…the focus should be on developing the core of the organisation, he said.
He said India had a lot of catching up to do in research. While its GDP growth rate is high, other indicators beg improvement. The UK has a lower GDP but still produces 7.8 per cent of the world's research output in comparison to India's 3.5 per cent, he added.
The economy can grow from 7.6 to 8 per cent till March 2012, said Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, on the sidelines of the event.
“At 7.6 per cent, the economy is growing faster than any economy in the world. Our objective should not be to worry about the fact that it has slowed down, but how to make it grow at 8 per cent plus next year,” he said.