Five Star Universities
Higher education gets a makeover as creature comforts, recreational options and state- of- the- art amenities take pride of place on university campuses.
Every morning Durga Kawar wakes up to the sight of five peacocks dancing on her front lawn. After a quick sprint past fruit orchards, shimmering lakes and rows of Malaysian orchids, the 19- year- old management student from Bangalore heads for her private yoga session. Soon, she joins her friends for breakfast at a massive dining hall complete with crystal chandeliers, oak tables and a hand- painted ceiling modelled to resemble Hogwarts, the fictional magic school immortalised in Harry Potter books. Seeing her pictures on Facebook, her friends can scarcely believe she’s studying at Mody Institute of Technology and Science ( MITS), a residential university in the middle of Rajasthan’s Shekhawati belt and not a Bollywood movie set.
Be it a six- storey shopping mall, a five- star hotel, luxury saunas, designer lounges or touchscreens in classrooms, private universities across India want nothing but the very best infrastructure for their students. “Fifteen years ago, studying at a private university was looked down upon. Today, parents are much more open to exploring new options. Huge campuses, high placement rates, luxurious amenities and aggressive marketing have changed the way we view these new universities,” says Rajiv Gupta, CEO of EGE education consultancy, which helps place students at universities abroad.
But it’s not just all about glitz and glamour. Campus placement cells and frequent recruitment fairs ensure that students are not left high and dry at the end of their course. Universities like MITS and Lovely Professional University in Phagwara achieved nearly 100 per cent placement last year. “There is certainly some great talent available at private universities around the country,” says Rajiv Burman, HR director, Microsoft IT.
So if nature walks, dance nights, food festivals, lavish hostels, huge sporting grounds and uber- luxurious facilities are what you are looking for, all you need to do is to join one of the many private universities that have cropped up around the country. The average undergraduate tuition and living fee at top private universities is Rs 2- 3 lakh per year. “Some might call it expensive but I feel it’s worth every penny,” says Malini Nair, 43, whose son attends KIIT University in Bhubaneswar.
Oasis of Education
Mody Institute of Technology and Science, Lakshmangarh A few years ago, Lakshmangarh, a small town in Rajasthan’s Sikar district, was barren land. Today over 80 species of birds, 14 fountains, five designer buildings, 400 trees and 8,000 students have transformed its landscape and economy. The brainchild of Kolkata- businessman R. P. Mody, it takes one visit for parents and students to fall in love with the lush green environs and plethora of unique activities available at MITS.
Set up as a state private university in 1998, the all- girls MITS has academic departments for undergraduate
students including engineering, management studies, arts, science and commerce and law. Alongside the university, Mody also set up the Mody School on the same campus. An allgirls CBSE day boarding school, it is the first in the state to be accredited by National Board for Education and Training. Over 150 faculty members and 2,000 students reside on the 500acre campus. “MITS is like Hotel California— you can check in any time you like but you can never leave. From the food to the library, it is the best campus in the world,” says Anukriti Rai, 20, a law student from Gujarat. She should know. She’s been there since kindergarten.
Supersize Me Lovely Professional University ( LPU), Phagwara
From dishing out hot jalebis at Punjabi weddings to running a 900- acre university campus on the Ludhiana- Jalandhar highway, Lovely Group believes in all things big and beautiful. Lovely Sweets was set up in 1961 by Baldev Mittal. “A few years later, we set up a Bajaj auto showroom. We wanted to give something back to society, and set up the university. Just like our other initiatives, the university had to be grand,” says Aman Mittal, 38, deputy director, LPU.
With its own tram system, Punjab’s largest open air theatre, a student- run shopping mall, over 30 ATMs, 90 restaurants, 15 hostels, eight private apartment blocks and a luxury gym, the campus is home to over 40,000 students and staff.
Bibin Babu, a 21- year- old BTech student at LPU from Kerala, says, “I got through to a Chennai university but after my parents heard of LPU, they sent me here. I have got a job offer working with the Bloomberg Institute. I’ll represent India at Google I/ O, the world’s largest technology conference, in San Francisco this year. This would have been impossible without LPU.”
Go Global
KIIT, Bhubaneswar
Early this year when Sarbajit Paul, 22, a final- year electrical engineering student at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology ( KIIT), Bhubaneswar, and a nine- pointer since his first year, decided to pursue a career in painting instead of taking up a job with an IT major he had bagged in 2012 during campus placement, he only had to mark an email to Joint Registrar ( students’ affairs) Sucheta Priyabadini. Though KIIT does not offer a relevant course, Priyabadini’s efforts landed Paul, who hails from Guwahati, a fine arts residency scholarship in Sweden.
Spread over 25 sq km of land with 20 Wi- Fi- enabled campuses, two of them with solar power backing, and multimedia classrooms with 7.5 million sq ft of built- up area, KIIT has
buildings with swanky floors, glass entrances, a rainwater harvester, and acres of green landscapes, swimming pools, cafeterias and food courts.
With the Rs 5,000 he had earned by teaching chemistry in Maharishi College, Bhubaneswar, KIIT founder Achyuta Samanta, 47, started an industrial training institute in 1992 in a two- room rented apartment in in the city. When a nationalised bank loaned him Rs 25 lakh in 1997, Samanta set up KIIT. Since then KIIT, which according to Samanta has assets worth Rs 4,000 crore, has only grown. The private university now has 18,000 students from across India and 22 other countries, 1,500 faculty members and 2,500 members of support staff.
Business as Casual
Universal Business School, Karjat
In his 1st year BBA at Universal Business School ( UBS) in Karjat, Maharashtra, Tej Pratap, 17, a US student of Indian origin, runs Shakespeare’s Kitchen, a personal venture, out of his Perkins Eastman- designed four- bedroom campus home. It’s a one- man show. He puts out a small weekly menu of pasta and sandwiches which he makes in the induction stove in his kitchenette. He offers doorstep delivery on a tray to students.
It’s the kind of spirit of enterprise that Tarundeep Singh Anand, 39, cofounder of UBS along with his father Gurdip Singh Anand, 71, and realtor Babulal Varma, 45, is looking for. Tarundeep, along with six academic council members, reviews the entire career of a student so as not to admit someone on the basis of just one exam. For instance, UBS admitted a girl who had raised Rs 2 lakh in a college marketing campaign.
In its first year, UBS, with 90 students, is a Rs 1,000- crore university. It offers a three- year, AICTE- certified BBA and a 15- month MBA, with an option of obtaining both degrees from Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK.