To quota or not to quota—that is a simplistic way to set the debate on higher education. With all political parties overwhelmingly pitching for a legislation or amendment for reservation in unaided private colleges, it is virtually a foregone conclusion. The Supreme Court may have ruled against quotas in such institutions for backward castes, Dalits and tribals but the consensus among parliamentarians is that one can't do away with reservations.

But beyond the debate on quotas are equally crucial issues. Who are these private colleges meant for? And what social obligations do these institutions have? For a vast majority, a five-star education is inaccessible simply because they cannot afford to pay the fees. Merit alone cannot get one in. There are countless stories of huge capitation fees being demanded and engineering seats being auctioned. If money comes before merit, then it is only a minuscule section of our population that can anyway access higher education. Issues like these have been glossed over in the furore over the Supreme Court order freeing private unaided educational institutions from state control.

How affordable is higher education? Take your pick if you have a matching wallet. A 11-month post-graduate diploma in general management at the Infinity Business School in Delhi costs Rs 3.90 lakh. Of course, the institute can oblige you with a loan from IndusInd Bank. A medical or engineering seat in Maharashtra comes with an initial investment of anywhere between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh. The story is the same in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh. And the trend is fast catching up in the rest of the country.

For many students as well as their parents, going in for a professional course is a difficult decision. A monthly outgoing of about Rs 15,000 puts a middle-class family in a tight spot. Says Asha, an engineering student: "An engineering course in a private college costs my parents Rs 1.5 lakh a year, and this excludes the hostel fee of Rs 30,000 annually." With two more siblings in the family, she hopes to land a job that will ease the burden.

Adds M. Kandasamy, a retired bank employee in Chennai: "There's no point in approaching a private engineering college. Last year a prestigious group of institutions offered my daughter an electronics and communication engineering seat for a capitation fee of Rs 4.5 lakh and annual fee of Rs 1 lakh. If I belonged to the minority community, the donation would be only Rs 3 lakh." The apex court may have added caveats against capitation fees, but since most extortion is illegal, the new court order is akin to implicitly offering a licence to fleece.

The last decade has seen the mushrooming of higher institutes of learning, after the government opened up education to private players. But fixing a reasonable fee structure for higher education has not got the attention it deserves. So when state government representatives debate the Private Professional Education Institutions Bill, educationists fear much of their attention will be focused on deleting references to state control in the light of the Supreme Court order to let professional unaided colleges to evolve their own admission policy. The bill, the brainchild of Union HRD minister Arjun Singh, also touches upon reservation for scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and backward candidates. On the vexed issue of fixing a fee, it states a committee shall ensure that admission is transparent.

Just a few kilometres on the outskirts of Delhi, a whole new world awaits rich students. Here education is imparted on huge LCD screens in air-conditioned environs and colourful fountains sparkle to life. Take the Jaypee Institute of Information and Technology, a deemed university. Though it became functional in 2001, it was formally inaugurated by Arjun Singh early this year.Having invested nearly

Rs 60 crore in building the institute, the university charges Rs 70,000 annually from students.That's tuition fees. There are other add-ons like a hi-tech laundry and a health club. The 'philanthropic' institute offers graduate and post-graduate courses and research facilities.

There are differing responses on how the court ruling impacts an institute like Jaypee. Additional solicitor general Ashok Desai is optimistic: "It maintains a balance by providing autonomy to the colleges, while ensuring there will be no profiteering and admissions will be on transparent criteria—determined by two committees headed by retired high court judges assisted by experts in accounts and management. They'll find out what would be an ideal and reasonable fee structure for an institution." Desai is careful to add that a society must balance both the need for excellence and the need for social justice.

But CPI(M) MP Nilotpal Basu says colleges in the country function as commercial centres. "It is incorrect to say that colleges flourish without aid of some kind. When we talk of social justice and positive discrimination, it is not something germane only to India. The government does not have the money and therefore the role of the private sector in creating facilities for good education is a good development, but social justice is a national goal that the private sector cannot ignore," he says. Adds Dalit activist Chandrabhan Prasad: "Most of these private colleges are just commercial shops auctioning degrees. Most of them are dubious as the government has not ensured any quality of education. They are situated far from the cities, forcing students to stay in the hostel." Prasad feels state control is essential and reservation necessary.

Keeping aside the call for social justice, Nilotpal's observation that no college is strictly "independent" was proved in Maharashtra where a report on 35 private institutions submitted to the state government two years ago said that 21 of these had taken government aid in various ways to the tune of Rs 279 crore. It was either capital aid (low cost or free land, low rents, etc) or revenue aid (subsidies).

In Maharashtra, education is sound business. Top-rung leaders of the Congress and the NCP own or are behind several institutions. Wearing both hats means their reaction to the Supreme Court judgement is mixed. As responsible politicians, they must be critical of the judgement and back any corrective legislation. But as owners/managers of educational institutions they are happy to be free from 'quota raj.' Among the big fish are Sharad Pawar (Vidya Pratishthan), chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh (Manjira Trust), Patangrao Kadam (Congress) and Kamal Kishore Kadam (NCP), former Congress legislator D.Y. Patil (D.Y. Patil Group), Padamsinh Patil (Terna Trust). In Karnataka too the list is endless and includes top politicians like C.K. Jaffer Sharief and Mallikarjuna Kharge.

In Tamil Nadu, not only has the business of education flourished, the political class too has prospered. Of the 231 self-financing engineering colleges in the state, more than 50 per cent are owned by politicians or their relatives. Such has been the state's support for private colleges that since 1978 no fresh aided college has come up. Between 1998 and 2002, the state saw a 150 per cent increase in the number of self-financing engineering colleges (from 76 to 207). Tamil Nadu today accounts for the largest number of unaided institutions of higher learning in the country. Of the 231 engineering colleges in the state, 220 are unaided institutions. Of the 147 medical and paramedical colleges, 132 are unaided. Of the 440 arts and science colleges, as many as 247 run without state funds.

In spite of the political consensus prevailing in Kerala on curbing commercialisation of higher education, private professional colleges charge hefty capitation fees for admissions to the 50 per cent quota seats allotted to them.Even Christian, Hindu and Muslim institutions with commendable track record in the education sector collect capitation fees on the pretext that tuition and other fees fixed by a commission barely meet establishment and recurring costs. From a dozen engineering colleges and five medical colleges three years ago, the state now has more than 70 engineering colleges and 12 medical colleges. A fallout of the experiment with liberalising higher education was the suicide by Dalit student Rajani S. Anand in July '04, after banks rejected her education loan applications.

What activists now call for is to not abolish quota seats but in fact to re-assess the aided and unaided institutions realistically. The management and government quota seats must be filled with a degree of transparency so that they do not become a shield for managements to generate unaccounted revenue. There are some who believe that abolishing quota seats will allow managements to make more money without ploughing any of it back into the institutions. They fear when merit-based open seats require annual fees of Rs 1-2 lakh, giving managements a free run will surely see a huge hike in fees.