Making a Difference: Budget Reaction on Higher Education Date:   Tuesday , April 28, 2015 Budget 2015 focus on higher education is clear and is a welcome step for more than one reason. The young demography will give dividend only if it is skilled. The recent Budget 2015 has taken bold steps towards the same philosophy by increasing the planned higher education budget by nearly 22 percent, up from Rs.13000 crores in the revised budget for 2014-15 to Rs.158555.26 crores in 2015-16. Nation rebuilding schemes such as \"Make in India\" cannot takeoff unless India has more centers of excellence enabling youth of India. Budget 2015 strives exactly to do that by proposing two Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and two Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Proposal to set up more AIIMS and other institutes of higher sciences are steps in the same direction towards improving quality of education. Another smart move is to upgrade existing good college such as ISM, Dhanbad to IIT. Compared to establishing IIT from scratch, this move saves government resources as well as reduces turnaround time, drastically, for IITs to be fully operational. ISM was already taking intake from Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) that filters student intake of IIT. Government should look at more such opportunities, for instance, Institutes such as Marine Engineering Research Institute, Kolkata, which also takes students from JEE, should be upgraded to individual IIT or made extension center of IIT Kharagpur. However, merely erecting colleges of higher education will not solve the purpose. The pool from which talent is sourced should be bigger to ensure that the talents selected are really the best of the country. To make the intake more broad-based, higher education has to be made more affordable. Budget 2015 scores very well here as well. The FM made a bold statement when he said that no student should have to miss higher studies due to financial constraint by promising better loan availability for Higher Education. A student Financial Aid Authority has been proposed to administer and monitor the front-end all scholarship as well Educational Loan Schemes, through the Pradhan Mantri Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram. Though the details are not clear yet as to how intentions will be converted to actions, we are keeping our fingers crossed. The push in the higher education sector along with financial support extended to the lower and middle class income group in the form of avenues and affordable options is encouraging, but there are more links required to make the loop complete. Budget 2015 has increased Institutes of Higher Education. It has also made studying there by more affordable. However entrance exams of these institutes, are extremely competitive. Somehow, teaching in regular schools and colleges is not sufficient to surmount these entrance exams and hence country wide, students depend upon private tuitions and coaching to be able to compete on national level. Coaching has become dearer for aspirants due to increase in service tax rate from 12.36 percent to 14 percent. Hence, I would, through this article, request our government to make this critical step affordable to students as well. This can be done by encouraging banks to extend student loan to cover coaching for entrance exams as well. Without this, aim for inclusive growth will be difficult to achieve. Talent pooling will also remain limited to people who can afford quality entrance preparation. Hence a strongly appeal to the government to look into this direction as well. The proposal to speed up The National Optical Fibre Network Programme (NOFNP) will go a long way in ensuring quality education to farther reaches of the country. Technology leveraged education is the next big thing that India is going to experience. Well connected Indian Tier 2, 3 cities will ensure that local colleges also get to learn from the best of faculties from across the world. Riding on better connectivity and digital India, Higher Education on digital platform can prove to be a great social enabler, empowering more and more students with better skills. Ritesh Raushan He is an M.B.A. from Jamnalal Bajaj, Mumbai. He secured 99.99 percentile. Prior to M.B.A., he qualified the IIT JEE 98 and secured admission in Marine Engineering and Research Institute, Kolkata. A high academic achiever, Ritesh has extensive experience in Applied Mechanics and Machine Design.