Chapter 6: The United States: Leading the World World
New York City, 2014: Mayank Gupta, K. Venkat Raman, Lakshmi Reddy, Rajesh Sinha and Kusum Thomas are a few of the many Indians who have just arrived at the JFK International Airport. These five are headed to various universities to pursue undergraduate and graduate studies. Like them, close to 900,000 students from over 100 countries are enrolled in US colleges and universities. US universities are magnets that attract the best and the brightest students from around the world.
Have you ever wondered:
Why do US universities and colleges attract students from around the world?
Why do students from India choose United States as the top destination for higher education?
Are there any lessons that India could learn from US higher education system?
In Chapter 6, I address these and related questions. Like in the case for India, I explore the US system and reveal its many strengths. While there are some creeping weaknesses with the US system, the strengths overpower them. According to one of the rankings of global universities, 80% of the top 20 and 52% of top 100 are US universities. So it is no wonder that 52% of Indians who go overseas for higher education choose the United States as their destination. Many of US universities were established hundreds of years ago. Some have transformed in recent times and a few others have been established more recently. These institutions are setting the standards and making an impact in students lives and careers and the local and national economy. Read more in my book.
(Shail Kumar is the author of Building Golden India: How to unleash India's vast potential and transform its higher education system. Now. To find out more about the author and the book, visit: www.shailkumar.com)