Abstract:

In the light on the ancient times, there were prominent universities of Nalanda, Takshashila, Vallabhi and Vikramshila which attract the scholars from all over the world in the field of higher education. The first three modern universities were established at Bombay (now Mumbai), Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Madras (now Chennai) in 1857 on the pattern of London University. Although the growth of higher education in British period was very slow. On the other side of scale, India has made significant growth since independence in terms of institutions, volume of enrolment and diversification of educational programmes. Higher education provides the capable manpower trained in arts, science, medicine, computer applications, agriculture and various technical and professional courses. At the national level, the number of universities is increased by twenty one times from 30 to 642 during 1951-2011. Against this, colleges increased by fifty times from 695 in 1951 to 34852 in 2011. This paper attempts to analyse the existing scenario of higher education in India. The main objective is to examine the spatial distribution of higher education among the major states1 of India. This has been done to make a comparative study among the major states in terms area and population served by colleges and universities and secondly to check the influence of spatial distribution of higher education at gross enrolment ratio of the states.

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