With much of U.S. higher education online only this semester, and its more long-term future deeply uncertain, now is a time to dream big. My own fantasy is based on the Indian government’s recent plan to encourage the top 100 universities in the world to operate in India.
Consider how the next 30 years might look if India were to allow the creation of a “Princeton Mumbai,” a “Harvard Hyderabad” or an “Oxford Kolkata.”
At first, most top U.S. universities would be reluctant to proceed boldly. Ventures abroad exist, such as the Yale-NUS College in Singapore, but they are usually smaller and less important relative to the home university. Top universities jealously guard their positions as exclusive institutions, and it would not be easy for Harvard (even pre-Covid-19) to hire faculty of comparable quality in India in most areas of academic study.
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