ABSTRACT
States have had varied historical trajectories and the resultant socioeconomic diversity had led to differences in access as well as quality of education. Moreover, since education is a concurrent subject under the central and state government, policy initiatives by state governments get reflected in the achievements in higher education of each state. The statistics on higher education released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development are based on the data collected from state government departments in a standard format. However, there is a lack of transparency in the data collection process nor is there any mechanism in place for validating the data given by each state. The Census, being the source of primary data with the widest coverage, remains the most credible source of information for state-level analysis. As expected, the north and eastern Indian states tend to show weaker higher education figures than the south and western Indian states.
