Most of the Universities in India are funded by

Concept: Education is a Concurrent List subject in India, and a university comes into existence only through a statute — an Act of Parliament, an Act of a State legislature, or a notification declaring an institution a deemed-to-be university under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956. The legislature that creates a university ordinarily also carries the responsibility for its recurring maintenance expenditure. A statutory regulator that lays down academic standards and releases grants is, by that role alone, a supplementary source of funds rather than the owner of every institution’s budget.

Application: Map each funding channel to the category of university it actually maintains.

Universities created by State legislatures form by far the largest category in the Indian system. Around the time of this paper, central universities numbered a few dozen, while state universities already numbered in the hundreds, with deemed and private universities making up the remainder. Because the great majority of universities are state universities, the great majority of university maintenance expenditure is borne by the State Governments.

Cross-check: Contrast the near-miss alternatives by what each one actually pays for.

• The Union Government maintains only the central universities and a small set of institutions of national importance, which together are a small fraction of all universities.

• The University Grants Commission is charged under the UGC Act, 1956 with coordination, determination and maintenance of standards, and with disbursing grants to universities and colleges declared eligible under the Act. Its grants supplement, and do not replace, the budget of the government that owns the institution.

• Private sponsoring bodies, trusts and individuals meet the cost of the self-financing segment only, mainly out of fees, donations and endowments.

Result: Most universities in India are state universities, and their funding is met by the State Governments.