Indian Maritime University former vice-chancellor and forme bureaucrat K Ashok Vardhan Shetty on tuesdsy proposed the idea of setting up a university finance commission in every state to rationalize funding for state universities. Similar to the state finance commission for local bodies, a university finance commission is needed in each state to assess the need for various courses, department, the quantum of grants. For example, Annamalai University is getting more grants than the funds given to all state universities put together. This shows there is no reasoning in our funding. There is considerable scope for rationlization of funding and this can be doen once every 10 years. He also suggested giving some additional grants based on performances indictors such as graduation outcomes, research output and students employability. On the ongoing financial crisis in state universities, A situation where pubilcly funded unversities and colleges lack full time faculty members. In some universities teachers were not paid for months at a time, and it shows the very low priority accorded to higher education. It's not only in Tamil Nadu it's the same in other states also. He also said public universities are guilty of creating unnecessary departmnets,starting too many courses and creating too many posts. India cannot become a developed nation if it neglects its public universities. It must emulate China and South Korea in creating more publicly funded institutions. Inadequate funding and neglect of existing universities is a gross disservice to students. To improve access to higher education he suggested measures, including lowering fees in top Institutions such as IITs, IIMs and overhauling the education loan system. The education loan. 
 

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