Draft report of

5.2.3 Requirements on the basis of revised historical trends. Per capita student expenditure on plan and non-plan heads has been calculated for each year from 1993-94 to 2003-04 (latest year for which data is available) and have been converted to 2006-07 prices. For the last year, prices have been adjusted by 5.5 percent. For all the earlier years, the GDP deflator has been used. It is seen that the per student expenditure on higher education has declined in recent years. At 2006-07 prices, the per student expenditure was about Rs. 17,000 in 1993-94 whereas it was only Rs. 13000 in 2003-04. There is clearly an urgent need to take corrective measures to arrest the decline in real per student expenditures that have contributed to deterioration in quality, as well as to increase expenditure to bring about some further improvement. Moreover, any improvement in quality and access (to improve inclusiveness) over and above the existing level will require higher level of revenue expenditure. A 50 percent mark-up over the 1993-94 expenditure levels would raise the expenditure to Rs. 25,400, which is quite close to the norm-based estimate. A lower mark-up of 25 percent over the 1993-94 level (giving an estimate of Rs 21,200 per student) would be feasible in the next five years.

5.2.4 Thus, in the medium term, public expenditure should be expected to support a minimum normative level of recurrent expenditure. A lower per student expenditure of Rs 21,200 in the Eleventh Plan period has been worked out.

5.2.5 The calculations are based on the premise that while the ongoing expenditure level of Rs. 13000 will continue for all students, the additional amount (Rs.13250 in the case of norm based revision and Rs 7200 in the case of simple mark-up) will be available to about one-fifth of the enrolled students each year over the Plan period in the form of increased support to educational activities.

6.