20 IIMs !!!

Today was a good day. I went out for OB-II project and instead finished BE project. ( But, OB is yet to be done !!). More of it later.

I, along with a few other friends had a hot discussion with Satish ( we never seem to agree on anything !!!!!) He suggested opening more ( 20+) IIMs. He had earlier mentioned the same about IITs. He says there will be more number of students who benefit from an institution like IIT or IIM, and the "percolation of quality" would make more people better off

There is a fundemental assumption in this argument. That the new Institutions would impart the same quality of education. But there are some grave problems

1) Does the government have enough funds to build and sustain such institutions without diluting the quality ( of infrastructure, for instance )
Its already talking of limiting the corpus of IIMs to $5Mn..HBS has $2Bn !!)
The reason why people perceive IITs and IIMs as increasing quality is because
of their infrastructure , faculty, etc......Can the new institutions do this...Take the faculty..Most of us feel the faculty is not good in our college ( being in an IIM, that is one out of six)...What will happen when more colleges come up..? The government is not able to attract good faculty even after offering good pay....
....If more colleges.......less money......less pay ....then Faculty quality??????

2) Lets assume for argument's sake that the government manages to set up 20 IIMs of decent quality....But, still the students with percentiles 99 and 98 would go to A, B or C..The others would go progressively to IIMs that are perceived to be of lower quality. So the top IIMs would retain their dominance and the others would find it difficult to catch up. Another important factor that makes cathing up infinitely more difficult is that of placements...

Realistically speaking companies would first go to the top colleges and then to the others. When an instituition is set up and named IIM, people naturally associate it with, among many other things Good placements, Good jobs. ( Atleast, considering the astronamical fees that they anyhow have to pay). Now if the new institutions cannot fulfill this expectation, it would lead to disillusionment and frustration.

Satish puts forth two suggestions to counter this-

a) People should not come with expectations ( tell that to someone who has taken a loan and paid 2.5 lakhs!!!!)

b) The entrepreneurial spirit must be inculcated and students must be encouraged to create jobs and not look for them...

The second one is a theoritically sound argument.
Practically, it runs into a few problems...

Indians have traditionally been risk averse. To change them would be a prolonged process. The effectiveness of force from the top is questionable..
Assuming the colleges succeed in igniting the entrepreneurial spirit in students, remember they still have to confront a society that has not changed. Then, their entrepreneurial wings would be clipped even before they take off
No doubt , there have been successful entrepreneurs in India.. But the odds against them were heavy...its a tribute to their fighting spirit that they came out winners..................................................................................................But, will be able to create fighters out of everyone ????

I personally feel, that by having an IIM name most new colleges ( remember 20 + ), would end up as just another XYZ college , sharing the IIM name..It would be equivalent to an obscure college, with poor quality having the IIM tag......and nothing more..

Before signing off, let me tell that this is the first time satish and me have continued an argument ( we usually argue only once on a topic ....But now,thanks to this blog thing..!!!!)