Students Fear the Future

The mismatch has fueled what Mr. Saxena called “a terrible national psychosis”: ferocious competition for engineering degrees that once seemed to offer reliable entry into India’s technology industry. Companies such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services built enormous businesses providing information technology services to multinational companies. Now artificial intelligence is making even those jobs appear less secure.

“Borrowing heavily to pursue degrees in India is unwise,” Sridhar Vembu, a co-founder of Zoho, an Indian cloud software company, wrote on social media. “I strongly believe we should not trap young people in debt in the name of education.”

In Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi, a handful of tired and anxious undergraduates took shelter from a monsoon downpour at a cafe near the flagship campus of Amity University.

For many students, Amity is a backup when cheaper options fall through. Atul Anand had been admitted to a top public school in his native state, Bihar. But a car accident derailed his admission two years ago, he said, and he borrowed money to attend Amity instead.

He expects his degree and living expenses to cost roughly $15,000. His state government lent him $4,000 toward the bill, while his family has stretched its savings to the limit.

His father teaches math and Hindi at a village school. At night, Mr. Anand takes freelance graphic-design jobs to help cover his daily expenses.

With luck, he said, he might graduate into a technology job paying $10,000 a year.

“My dreams are not big,” he said. “I want to reduce the burden of the loan and the costs to my family.”

Against that backdrop, Mr. Anand joined the final day of last month’s protests — not as a protester, he said, but in solidarity with students who saw the gathering as a place to air grievances of every kind.

“I did not go for any political reason,” he said.

His friend Viswesh M.J. was skeptical of the protesters’ stated demands, which focused on overhauling India’s testing processes. In his view, the unrest reflected something deeper.

“The anger is a mask for your fear,” he said of the protesters. “You’re all very afraid of the future.”

Mr. Saxena knows what the other side of India’s education divide looks like. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, one of the country’s elite public universities, before joining Boston Consulting Group and helping build start-ups in Silicon Valley. Now, through Avanti Fellows, he helps deserving lower-income students prepare for the exams that can win them places at elite institutions.

The program offers free test preparation and intensive coaching. But there are far more aspiring students than places at those schools and far fewer good jobs than graduates chasing them. That leaves a vast private education industry selling families a chance at upward mobility even as the odds deteriorate.

“No one’s really going to get a job,” Mr. Saxena said. “People are going to monetize their desperation.”

- Author: Alex Travelli and Showkat Nanda, The New York Times

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