The DNA of Inclusivity: Why Ashoka University Surprised Me

I had joined Ashoka University in summer, 2025. During my recent winter break, a lot of my friends were curious about my Ashoka experience, and I found myself repeatedly answering one question: "What is the one thing about Ashoka that impresses you most?"

My answer is always the same: Inclusivity is written into the university’s DNA.

I thought I knew Ashoka. I taught the very first batch here; my daughter studied here; I’ve attended many events here. Yet, when I joined full-time in June 2025, I was still stunned by the depth of their commitment. It reminded me of seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time. You can read the descriptions and see the photos, but nothing prepares you for the actual scale of the beauty when you stand before it.

At Ashoka, inclusivity isn't a policy—it’s a lived reality. We believe that any student with demonstrated talent should be able to thrive here, regardless of their background. To achieve this, we focus on two critical pillars: Accessibility and Affordability.

1. Support for All Learners: The Office of Learning Support (OLS)

True inclusivity goes beyond physical ramps. Our Office of Learning Support (OLS) provides comprehensive care for students with a wide range of needs:

• Visible Disabilities: Support for visual, hearing, and locomotor impairments.

• Invisible Disabilities: Specialized assistance for students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and other learning disabilities.

• Holistic Integration: The OLS provides necessary technology, coordinates with Residence Life for specialized housing, and even trains faculty members to adapt their teaching methods for diverse learners.

Furthermore, we anchor the Inclusive University Alliance, a network of institutions working together to ensure these supports become the standard across Indian higher education.

2. Breaking Financial Barriers: A 1,000-Crore Commitment

Ashoka ensures that financial constraints never stand in the way of talent. Since our inception, nearly 50% of our students have received some form of scholarship.

The scale of this support is unprecedented in India:

• The Milestone: In the last 10 years, we have committed over ₹700 crores in scholarships. With our growing student body, that number is set to exceed ₹1,000 crores in the next couple of years.

• The 2026 Batch: We have announced 500 scholarships for the incoming class. While 200 are merit-based, the majority are means-based (and merit scholars are eligible for additional financial aid).

• Full-Ride Support: For many of our students (more than 10% of the cohort), we offer complete tuition waiver. But for some of our students with the greatest financial need, we offer more than just a tuition waiver. We cover tuition, hostel fees, dining, and even provide a stipend for out-of-pocket expenses.

    

I am not aware of any other university in India offering this level of generous, guaranteed support.

If you know a bright student seeking college admission this year—regardless of their financial status or physical needs—please share this with them. For more details on our admissions process and aid, I encourage you to reach out to our admissions team.

Choosing College Program based on Placement or ROI

This is the month when I receive the maximum phone calls or emails or whatsapp messages. Students and parents are confused between various programs and if you ask them for the source of confusion, it is almost always, which program has a marginally higher RoI. I wrote a blog last year on Return on Investment in Education where my thesis was that one should try to figure out what people are doing 5-10 years after graduation and not worry about the first month salary after the graduation. But I think it was a bit complex and talked about too many things. Still if you want to understand RoI thing in more details, do read that.

In this blog, I will take a simple example to show why considering just the first month salary is not a good way to consider RoI. By the way, I am of the opinion that one should never look at RoI in these terms, and should just consider the quality of education in a university, and hope that higher quality education will lead to a good career. But since I can't convince people to not look at fake placement data, let me take a small step and point out some obvious fallacies.

Let us start with the question. You have options to take admission in two different programs. The program 'P1' has the total cost over 4 years as Rs 10 lakhs and the median salary offered last year to graduating students was Rs. 50,000 per month.  The program 'P2' has the total cost over 4 years as Rs 20 lakhs and the median salary offered last year to graduating students was Rs. 60,000 per month. Which one would you choose.

The typical answer I have received is that P1 has the payback period of 20 months, and P2 has a payback period of 33 months (just divide the total cost by first month salary), and hence P1 is obviously far better.

Let us do some maths now. But before that, let us make some assumptions. One will work for 50 years. OK, let us say 40 years. That the average growth rate in salary per year will inflation plus 5% (an extremely conservative estimate). Now, let us look at what does an additional investment of Rs. 10 lakhs give us:

First year, an additional Rs 1.2 lakhs and every year, this number increases by 5% at constant prices. So in 40 years, you will earn an extra 1.45 crores. Remember this is at constant prices and over and above inflation. There is no investment in the world that can beat this or come even close. And this is when we had taken an extremely conservative numbers. Just to compare, an investment at 10% (remember, we are discounting inflation in all our calculations), will give you 1 lakh per year for 40 years, that is 40 lakhs in 40 years. (I am not assuming reinvestment, but consumption, but it would not make any difference to the point.)

Now, if we assume that P1 is likely to be poorer quality and P2 is likely to be higher quality and that is why P2 is able to command a higher price, there will be an additional effect. People with P1 may grow at 5% (plus inflation) but people with P2 degree may grow at 7% (plus inflation). Better quality education also has other side effects in terms of taking better decisions in life.

The summary is that if a higher cost program results in even a small increase in placement, it is a better RoI for you. (Again, a statutory warning to nor consider RoI but quality of faculty, personal interests, curriculum, while taking the decision regarding higher education.)

 

 

Difference between Top educational institutions and the next

There is one question that has bothered me for long. The academic preparation or the quality in general of students entering IITs (and other top institutions) and Tier 2 institutions is only marginally different. But the quality of graduates from Tier 1 and Tier 2 is vastly different. From Tier 2 institutions, the best students do extremely well, even better than an average Tier 1 graduate, but if we compare the average Tier 1 and Tier 2 graduates, there is a significant gap.

(Is this gap only my biased perception? I do see a lot more IITians in the top rung of most tech companies. Is this bias and not truth. If truth, is this because of Old Boys networks of IITs. If there is no such gap, are all students and parents wrong in choosing Tier 1 institutions over Tier 2 institutions. One can have all these questions. But for the purpose of this blog, I will assume that there is a significant gap.)

Why a minor gap at admission time expands to a significant gap at the graduation time.

The obvious answer will be that the quality of inputs at Tier 1 institutions are far better than the quality of inputs at Tier 2 institutions. The faculty quality is better. The labs and infrastructure are better. They have access to more people who can help them in better curriculum and all that. Greater amount of resources can lead to better outcomes.

But I am not satisfied with this obvious answer. There must be other factors which are not based on resources alone. Are there cultural factors, for example. And the reason I am trying to find non-resource factors is that if indeed there are such factors, we can bring them to Tier 2 institutions and improve their outcomes without additional resources.

I believe I now understand some of those factors and sharing them in this blog.

Student motivation and aspirations: I think the biggest factor is that when a student joins a Tier 2 institution, the whole world tells him that he has failed in securing admission to Tier 1. This demotivates the student and his aspirations become lower. He stops working as hard as he used to do in school. Only a few remain motivated and hard working. And these students do extremely well throughout their careers.

Mentorship and Networking: In a Tier 1 institution, there are so many visitors, seminars, workshops, lectures. Industry leaders, successful alumni, top academicians, all are visiting the campus frequently. If a student attends even a very small percentage of these events, or interacts with very few of these visitors, that has significant positive impact. One usually finds seniors, recent graduates if not successful old alumni, who can mentor and advice. In Tier 2 institutions, one has lesser number of events due of resource crunch, but more importantly, when they do invite people, they are shy of inviting the top notch people. When a top person does visit a Tier 2 institution, the institution is too bothered about his/her comfort, keep a lot of time in the itinerary for "rest" and also not spend a lot of time interacting with students because the institution does not have confidence in how the students will behave. So the students don't get proper mentorship and advice during their academic program.

Culture: Excellence is a matter of culture. To give a simple example, if there is no attendance requirement, what percentage of students will attend a class in Tier 1 institution, and what percentage of students will attend a class in Tier 2 institution. How many students will try to get an internship on their own six months before the start date. How much is the role of students in taking decisions, giving them a stake in marching towards excellence.

Having recognized some of these non-resource factors, we have tried to make a difference in JK Lakshmipat University.

When students join us in the first year, we repeatedly tell them that not being in top 0.1% of the country on a given day does not define them. In any case, the country is not going to be built by 0.1% people. Many of the students when they realize that what they were considering a failure was only inability to be in the top few on a given day, they do gain some confidence and motivation. There are many sessions in our induction program from experts which makes them believe in themselves.

We have initiated a formal mentorship program in the campus. Every student gets a faculty mentor who meets them regularly and there is also a possibility of getting an external mentor to those who seek one, typically aligning with the career goals of a student. For example, those who are thinking of entrepreneurship, can get a mentor who has done a startup.

We have lots of visitors on campus from both industry and academia and we leverage these visits quite a bit. The visitors are not here to rest in the guest house. There will be people who will interact with them during their travel from airport/station to campus and back and once on campus, there is going to be a series of interactions.

We have a strong Student Mobility Program under which lots of our students spend a semester in IITs and other top institutions to get exposure to the kind of culture we want to develop here.

In our experience, these non-academic interventions really help in improving learning by our students and almost all of these don't require major financial resources to implement.