He said the disparities in access to high-quality post-secondary education were evident in both the U.S. and India. The socio-economic dividing line, depicted through 70% of the population not having a college degree, is closely related to the decline and eventual halt in the growth of educational attainment and the withdrawal of State investment in colleges and universities, pointed out Prof. Daniels.

In the U.S., he said, student debt is roughly one trillion dollars, or one-sixteenth of the total debt of the country. “One can see the same trends in India, where funding to support students from poor backgrounds in accessing higher education is nearly absent. There are disparities in access for students from rural areas, for women, for the poor, for students from Scheduled Castes and Tribes,” he added.

According to 2008 data, only 11.1% of individuals in India’s rural areas attend college or university, compared to 30% in urban areas. The gross attendance ratio for Scheduled Tribes was 7.7%, compared to a national average of 17.2%. By one estimate, India will need to add 90 lakh new post-secondary seats by 2016 to merely keep pace with growth in demand, even as there is already a dearth of roughly 4 lakh faculty members, said the Professor.

The Bhoruka Charitable Trust and the Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) jointly organised the lecture to commemorate the late P. D. Agarwal who had established the trust. IIHMR trustee-secretary and former Rajasthan Chief Secretary M. L. Mehta presided over the lecture.Prof. Daniels noted that government support for research in both the U.S. and India had declined in real terms over the past decade. There has been a 26% reduction in funding for higher education in the U.S. and additional serious budget cuts loom on the horizon. At the very least, public funding is unlikely to return to previous levels, particularly as other costs such as health care continue to rise.

In India, the Yash Pal Committee has characterised funding as “unpredictable, inadequate and inflexible”. Just last month, New Delhi slashed the budget for higher education by 13%. Spending on all education in India as a percentage of GDP is lower than in Brazil, Mexico, Iran, China, Botswana or Uganda, said Prof. Daniels while emphasising that educationists, scholars and citizens must act briskly and effectively to meet these challenges.

John Hopkins University is the largest university recipient of Federal research funds in U.S. and is home to a host of pre-eminent schools and programmes. As the University's 14th president, Prof. Daniels has focused his leadership on the overarching themes of interdisciplinary collaboration, student accessibility and community engagement.

The State must play a fundamental role in promoting education and make a sustained investment in colleges and universities. The institutions of governance must be able to deflect and manage politics that can distort policy formulation in the area linked to the core goals of social transformation, equity and economic growth, he added.