Rethinking College in India: Liberal Arts, Placements, and Return On Investment
4 July 2025 6:20 PM IST
In the past two decades, there’s been a wave of liberal arts universities in the country – these challenge the traditional Indian model that sequesters students into strict streams.
FLAME set up shop in 2007, then Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Ashoka University in 2014. This year, Nayanta University of Pune will take its first batch of students.
Liberal arts universities encourage students to take classes in lots of different departments. They also generally have smaller class sizes and focus on the Socratic, discussion model of learning.
Liberal arts universities have been around for quite some time now, but what do they offer that’s so different from traditional Indian colleges? What are the career prospects of their graduates, and has that changed in the recent past? They’re also quite expensive, in the tune of 30-40 lakhs for a three-year Bachelor’s course, for instance; are they worth it?
Tune in to the latest episode of The Signal Daily to find out more. The Core produces The Signal Daily. We don’t do hot takes, instead we bring you deep dives into the how and why of consumer trends.
To check out the rest of our work, go to www.thecore.in. Thank you for listening!
The Core produces The Signal Daily. Find us wherever you get your favourite podcasts. To check out the rest of our work, go to www.thecore.in
NOTE: A machine transcribed this episode. A human has looked at this text but there might still be errors. Please refer to the audio above, if you need to clarify something. If you want to give us feedback, please write to us at [email protected].
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TRANSCRIPT
Kudrat (Host): In 2018, Tech Mahindra’s then CEO Mr. CP Gurmani told the Times of India that 94% of graduates of Indian engineering colleges are unemployable. He said that colleges often teach outdated programs and don’t equip students with the real-world skills that they need to succeed in the workforce.
It’s no secret that the professional world is very different from the academic one. That’s especially true in India, where most high school curriculums after class 10 are strict and stream-based.
In the past two decades, a wave of private, liberal arts universities have come up – these challenge the traditional Indian model. In 2007, FLAME set up shop in Pune, followed by Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and finally, Ashoka University in 2014. This year, Nayanta University of Pune will also take its first batch of students. These colleges are interdisciplinary, meaning they allow students to take classes in lots of different departments. They also have smaller class sizes that focus on the Socratic discussion model of learning.
Liberal arts universities have been around for quite some time now, but what do they offer that’s so different from traditional Indian colleges? What are the career prospects of their graduates, and has that changed in the recent past? They’re also quite expensive, in the tune of 40-60 lakhs for a four-year course; are they worth it?
Kudrat (Host): I’m your host Kudrat Wadhwa and you’re listening to The Signal Daily. We don’t do hot takes. Instead, we bring you deep dives into the how and why of consumer trends.
In this episode, we’ll hear from students and graduates of liberal arts universities. We’ll also speak to career counsellors and deans – will attending a liberal arts university improve your career prospects?
Kudrat (Host): Most top Indian colleges like SRCC or St Stephens in Delhi or St Xavier’s in Mumbai and even the IITs require extremely high board exam marks in grade 12. Starting 2020, students also have to score high on CUET, or the Common University Entrance Test, to get in. And then, once you get into a Delhi University for say, a B. Comm degree, you pretty much stick to it for the rest of your college career.
But, true to their holistic spirit, liberal arts colleges don’t just check your board exam marks. Ashoka, FLAME and Krea also check SAT scores — that’s the test students take to study abroad in the US. Ashoka and FLAME also have their own aptitude tests. Applicants have to write a personal essay or a statement of purpose and give an interview, all of which determine whether you’d get admission to these universities.
Once you’re in, you’ll take some core classes from across disciplines in your first year — you’ll take an English class, a Science course, a Math course. That’s similar to what happens in the West, where students don’t declare their major until their second year. Students also have the flexibility to switch their majors if some other course tickles their fancy. In the US, students can also go to medical school after taking pre-med courses in their Bachelor’s program, but for now, most liberal arts universities in India don’t offer pre-professional programs like medicine.
Students and graduates say they love the interdisciplinary aspect of liberal arts colleges.
Jai: my name's Jai. I am 26. I graduated from Ashoka in 2021, and I'm currently working at an Indian private equity firm.
I, uh, to me, I had the option between going to DU and Ashoka, and it was a pretty conscious choice to choose Ashoka at the time, mainly because I, I mean, I knew I kind of wanted to do econ, but I wasn't like, I.
Sure if that's what I would really enjoy. Uh, and I didn't know how it would play out, so I wanted to like keep my options open.
Kudrat (Host): The Signal Daily also spoke to Meher Malhotra, a third-year student at FLAME in Pune, who felt similarly. Meher is majoring in Psychology, with a minor in Cultural Studies.
Meher: in my journey, at least when I started out, I wasn't completely sure on what I want to pursue later on. I knew it was something in humanities and social sciences maybe.
my mother and I came across liberal arts as a program just in general through some career counseling session in school. And then we learned about Flame and Ashoka and J who do these, like who are known for these programs.
And it just kind of me, I think it totally suited my needs because I, it helped me explore various fields and then decide accordingly through my experience.
Kudrat (Host): Essentially, liberal arts colleges in India encourage their students to explore, unlike their traditional Indian counterparts. But, this cost comes at a price – most of these colleges are private and expensive.
For their Bachelor’s degrees, which are generally three years long, Ashoka charges 10 lakhs per year, FLAME also charges about the same. Krea in Sri City costs about 9 lakhs, and Azim Premji costs about 4.5 lakh rupees. In comparison, it costs much less to attend top-tier traditional Indian colleges under Delhi University or Mumbai University. If you’re staying at the hostel, you’d pay a maximum of 1 lakh per year for both education and housing.
Kudrat (Host): So, is the investment into liberal arts universities worth it? The Signal Daily spoke to career counselors and recruiters to answer that question.
Top-tier universities like Ashoka offer world-class campus facilities to their students, which makes campus life much more invigorating. Here’s counselor Preeti Mehra talking about this.
Preeti M: what they offer is a lot of stuff which is happening in the college premises itself.
Kudrat (from clip): don't traditional universities also offer the same similar clubs,
PM: but way, way less than number. Okay. And very traditional again, in that approach. So they would have, Which everyone's got, like being part of this committee. That committee. That committee.
But they won't have like specially a club, which is say an astronomy club. I'm just giving an example. Yeah. So they have, if a new age university has 30 clubs, maybe the traditional will have one event and two clubs, something like that. So it's not, not as much Okay. Boil down to resources, space, uh, money, everything.
Ankit: Now, a traditional SRCC does not offer that kind of a. Value in terms of the infrastructure or the quality of faculty or the, or the campus life experience, right? Yeah, yeah. Show does, yeah. A style campus with great faculty. There's an option to choose what they want to study, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they don't wanna send their child abroad Yeah.
After 12th. Yeah. And they wanna keep their child in Indian still give them that global feel. Yeah. Is where these liberalized courses are now gaining popularity.
Kudrat (Host): That was Ankit Kapoor, the founder of Pratham Test Prep, which helps students prep for both college and for careers. Ankit said that he’s seen a big boom in how popular liberal arts courses have become in the past few years –
Ankit: if I look at the last five years, uh, yeah. So from, uh, two, 3% interest, I would see now that interest is young to about 15 odd percent if I look at my sample set.
And our sample size is pretty big.
So that itself is a significant jump. So that sample size is based on saying about 8,000 kids that we teach every year. So from 2% to 15% on 8,000 is a big number.
Kudrat (Host): There are a few reasons for this shift – top liberal arts colleges offer amazing resources to students, infrastructure, top faculty, flexibility, lots of clubs, and an active campus life.
Liberal arts colleges are also more suited to newer jobs that we’re seeing in the market.
Ankit: There is now a requirement for new, new types of courses, which are gonna get jobs for them in the future. Like a business analytics, right? Yeah, quantitative finance. Right. Which a Traditional university not catering to.
an SRCC or a, or a BComm honor, there's still a very traditional course, which is still deep rooted into what used to Happen. Okay. Right. It's not changed over the period of time. Yeah. Uh, the curriculum is still dated, still is always been dated, still dating. Okay. So they're not, uh, changing with the changing times.
Kudrat (Host): Unlike older, established universities, new-age liberal arts colleges offer courses that are more with the times. Here’s Preeti Mehra again.
Preeti Mehra: we are moving towards a world which is very uncertain. Um, things are changing. Careers are changing. What exists today may or may not exist tomorrow. Yeah. So we need to be a little bit more, um, we need to train our children to have a lot more skills. They can't just have one skill. I mean, I can't just be an engineer for the rest of my diet as an engineer also, I will probably at some stage have to become a manager, and at some stage I would have to.
Do a lot of other stuff, right? Yeah. So, um, hence the liberal arts philosophy works very well in that sense because you gain multiple skills. Yeah. You, you, you're building your skillset, you're building your. To problem solve. You're building your ability to live in a world which is not so certain because your degree itself, you are foreign.
A track which you may change, what you've gone into, uh, with what vision you've gone and, and what you come out. Yeah. So that point of view, liberal arts and science definitely works. Uh, it is new age. It is a philosophy which has been followed internationally for a number of years, and it's important that our education system also works towards, you know, the more holistic kind of development, which is what liberal arts offers.
Kudrat (Host): Though liberal arts universities offer more modern courses, when it comes to placements, traditional universities still take the cake.
Ankit Kapoor: Traditional universities still have very, very good placement records and liberal arts universities in India not really match up to that.
even if you look at an Ashoka, an Ashoka will not get a child a 50 per annum. ackage. Okay. Which an SRCC might be able to get.
Kudrat (from clip): But overall, I mean, if we disregard the peaks, uh, like overall, traditional very good colleges have better placement rates, you'd say?
AK: Yes, absolutely. They still do.
Kudrat (Host): Ankit also said that even a mid-tier college from a top university like DU, has decent placement records. One thing to keep in mind here is that unlike public universities, private universities aren’t obligated to publish their placement results. So, Ankit’s information about the placements of liberal arts colleges is based on interviews with students and graduates and newspaper reports.
Traditional universities in India perform better when it comes to placements because they have an established alumni network. While new-age universities do invite consultancies like McKinsey and Kearney to campus, who hire from the student body, these new universities are still building their alumni network. Ankit also said that there hasn’t really been a change in the placement rates or the kinds of jobs liberal arts graduates get in the recent past.
So, if you’re picking between a liberal arts versus a traditional college, what should you choose?
Ankit Kapoor: So, uh, if the outcome of being taught of variety and different and new age courses is the concentration of liberal. Makes a lot of sense. Okay. But if the outcome is getting a good job, yeah. Then we would be better off sticking to traditional, uh, courses and traditional colleges.
Uh, but we wanna really be taught well and, and be taught subjects which are going to help you in the future in the long run. Yes. Uh, liberal arts colleges are the way forward.
So when you say long run, yeah. It basically means that your expectation is of an ROII want a good job. Yeah, right. Then it's the traditional colleges because there is hardly any fees that you pay for a period of four years. Yeah. But even if you get a 25,000 or 30,000 week job, your return of investment is amazing.
Yeah. But if you have 20, 40, 45 lags and you're still getting a 25,000 week job, then it doesn't add up.
Kudrat (Host): From the perspective of placement and RoI, your best bet would be to go to a traditional university, ideally to a top-tier college. But, when it comes to campus life, the quality of faculty and moulding students into holistic people who would be better suited for future uncertainty, liberal arts colleges are a better choice.
But, let’s be honest, the job market for freshers right now is abysmal, whether you go to a traditional college or a liberal arts one. An Economic Times report from June 2025 found that this year, big recruiters recruited half the people they did last year. The report also found that premier, traditional Indian colleges like St. Xavier’s in Mumbai, and Jai Hind and Lady Shri Ram in Delhi managed to place only 15-30% of their students by June.
Given that, the experts I spoke to said that a student has to more than just study in college to make their profile stand out.
Preeti Mehra: in terms of the job market, either the job market is choppy worldwide. So it again, depends on the student, how much they network, how much they turn, what other skill sets they have picked up along the way, It depends on your skill. It depends on the GPA that you accumulate, not just the GPA, the skills that you accumulate, how you interview, how you perform.
Yeah. What are the internships you do holistically, what all you have done in those years, which is going to determine whether you get placed or not.
Kudrat (Host): The term liberal arts comes from Latin, where Liberalis means free and arts means practice. Art here doesn’t mean art in the fine art sense, but rather, it means practice. Historically a liberal arts education during the antiquity period in Greece contained the trivium of language – that’s rhetoric, grammar and logic. As well as the quadrivirum of astronomy, arithmetic, geometry and music. Essentially, the goal was to create well-rounded individuals who would be active participants in a free society.
While American universities embraced liberal arts, post-independence India took the other route. Until the recent rise of liberal arts universities, most students got silo’ed into their fields and rarely looked elsewhere. But, new-age liberal arts universities are offering a fresh approach, though there’s challenges.
For starters, they’re expensive. From an RoI perspective, they’re probably not worth it, as traditional colleges are much cheaper and have better placement results. But, the interdisciplinary courses that liberal arts universities offer mould students for a more flexible future.
Right now, the job market is uncertain for everyone. To ensure that they get a good job, a student needs to go the extra mile – do lots of internships, network, good use of their alumni network and also focus on developing soft skills, like communication, and learning workplace etiquette.
Kudrat (Host): That’s all for today. You just heard The Signal Daily. We don’t do hot takes. Instead, we’ll bring you deep dives into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ on consumer trends.
The Core produces The Signal Daily. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts. To check out the rest of our work, go to www.thecore.in.
If you have feedback, we’d love to hear from you. Write to us @[email protected].
Thank you for listening.
