Galgotias Is Not the Problem. The Marketplace Model of Education Is.

When a controversy surrounds Galgotias University, the instinct is to treat it as an isolated failure — Galgotias Is Not the Problem. The Marketplace Model of Education Is - a lapse in governance, a managerial error, a regulatory oversight. But focusing solely on one institution risks missing the larger story. The deeper problem is structural: the steady commercialisation of private higher education in India.

Over the past two decades, India has witnessed an extraordinary expansion of private universities. The growth was not accidental. Public institutions, constrained by limited funding and bureaucratic inertia, could not absorb the country’s demographic surge. Millions of young Indians — many first-generation learners — sought degrees as instruments of mobility. The private sector stepped into that vacuum.

In principle, this was neither undesirable nor avoidable. A nation of India’s scale requires diverse providers. Private capital can build infrastructure faster than the state. It can experiment, innovate and respond to market demand with agility.

But aspiration, when filtered entirely through the market, alters the character of education.

The contemporary private university increasingly operates within a corporate logic. Admissions cycles resemble marketing campaigns. Prospectuses mirror investment brochures. Placement percentages are foregrounded, while questions about research depth, faculty ratios or academic freedom recede into smaller print.

The campus becomes a product.

Fee structures reveal the shift most starkly. Tuition in many private institutions has risen to levels that demand either substantial family savings or long-term borrowing. For middle-class households, a degree is now among the largest financial commitments they will make. When education becomes a high-cost purchase, expectations transform. Students become consumers. Parents demand measurable returns. Institutions promise employability.

Yet education is not a commodity whose value can be guaranteed like a consumer durable.

The expansion of seats and programmes, often justified in the language of access, can sometimes outpace investments in faculty and research ecosystems. Laboratories and auditoriums may be built swiftly; cultivating a culture of scholarship is slower, less visible, and less marketable. The incentive structure — growth in enrolment, growth in revenue — shapes priorities.

This is not to argue that all private universities are deficient. Some have developed credible research cultures and serious academic environments. Nor is it to romanticise public institutions, many of which struggle with their own crises of funding and governance.

The concern lies in the governing philosophy.

When universities compete primarily for market share, academic seriousness can quietly yield to brand management. Rankings are chased; social media impressions are curated; celebrity endorsements are amplified. What receives less attention are permanent faculty appointments, interdisciplinary scholarship, and the patient mentoring that defines higher learning.

Regulatory oversight, largely exercised through bodies such as the University Grants Commission, often operates reactively. By the time scrutiny intensifies, reputational damage has already occurred. Rapid expansion tests the limits of accreditation systems designed for a slower era.

The stakes extend beyond any single campus.

India frequently invokes its “demographic dividend.” But a dividend presumes quality. Degrees without depth, campuses without scholarship, and scale without standards will not translate into intellectual capital. They will merely inflate credentialism.

The commercialisation of higher education also reshapes the social meaning of the university. Historically, universities were imagined as communities of inquiry — spaces where disagreement was tolerated, research pursued for its own sake, and intellectual autonomy guarded. When revenue targets become central, institutional risk-taking narrows. Academic choices are filtered through viability and demand.

This transformation is subtle. It does not arrive with dramatic announcements. It seeps into administrative decisions, budget allocations and marketing strategies. Over time, the university begins to resemble a service provider rather than a site of learning.

To mention Galgotias in this context, then, is not to single it out for condemnation. It is to recognise that controversies around any one private university are reflections of a larger ecosystem in which education has been repositioned as an industry.

The way forward is neither nostalgia nor hostility towards private participation. It is recalibration.

Transparency in fee structures. Verifiable placement data. Clear benchmarks for faculty recruitment and research investment. Independent audits of academic quality. Stronger and more anticipatory regulation. These are not anti-market interventions; they are safeguards for credibility.

India cannot afford to confuse scale with substance. Nor can it reduce higher education to a transactional exchange between institution and enrollee.

If universities are to serve the republic rather than merely the market, commercial logic must remain subordinate to academic purpose. Otherwise, the controversy of today will be the norm of tomorrow — and the promise of higher education will narrow into a priced commodity, accessible but not necessarily transformative.