NEP: When Everyone’s in College but Nobody’s Getting Employed
NEP’s “50 percent GER by 2035” can be a beacon of inclusive education-or a time bomb of credential oversupply.
By P SESH KUMAR
New Delhi, October 13, 2025 — The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 ambitiously aims to raise India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education—currently hovering around 28 percent—to 50 percent by 2035. But what if this expansion of access is not matched by an expansion of meaningful opportunities?
The recent surge of engineers, MBAs, even PhDs lining up for class-10–level constable posts in Madhya Pradesh highlights a looming catastrophe in the making: a swelling cohort of overeducated yet underemployed youth.
The Ambitious Backdrop: From GER 28 to 50
When NEP 2020 declares that “India will aim to increase the GER in higher education-including vocational education-to 50 percent by 2035,” it is staking a bet on mass democratization of college access. The logic is clear: higher education is no longer an elite privilege but a mass right. Indeed, in its answer to the Rajya Sabha, the Ministry of Education notes that the GER in the year 2020–21 was only around 27.3 percent, and expanding this must involve new regulation for open and distance learning, the Academic Bank of Credits, converting single-stream colleges into multidisciplinary institutions, and bolstering scholarship schemes.
To reach 50 percent, every state, region, and social group must see huge rises in participation. Some states are doing better: for example, Goa’s current GER is 35–36 percent, still far from the target. But elsewhere, vast gaps remain. Critics have already flagged that rural, tribal, and marginalized communities might be left behind or forced into subpar colleges just to inflate numbers.
And so the ambition: expand seats, build new colleges, empower open/distance education, encourage vocational streams, enable flexibility (multiple entry/exit), credit transfers, and incentives for underserved areas. But a key underlying assumption is often glossed over: that demand (student aspiration) plus supply (college seats) will naturally translate into absorption (jobs or meaningful livelihoods). That is precisely where the trouble lies.
The Chasm Between Education and Employability
It is fashionable in policy circles to assert that India suffers from a skills mismatch: too many graduates, too few jobs, and a poor linkage between curricula and industry needs. But the Madhya Pradesh constable recruitment saga brings this mismatch into stark relief.
According to news reports, over 9 lakh applicants (some say 9.5 lakh, or even 9.76 lakh) applied for merely 7,500 constable posts in Madhya Pradesh. Among these, thousands are postgraduates, engineers, MBAs, and even PhD holders-all applying for a job whose minimum educational requirement is Class 10. In one dramatic report, a single constable position reportedly drew 13,000 aspirants.
How do we make sense of this? At root, it is a tragedy of oversupply and misaligned expectations. As technological advances reduce the employment intensity curves in many sectors, traditional labour roles shrink. In agriculture, in small-scale manufacturing, in manual services, the scope for absorbing large numbers of graduates is waning. This intensifies the competition for state or municipal jobs-jobs perceived as stable, secure, and credential-tolerant (i.e. accepting “overqualified” applicants).
Young Indians, having invested scholarship and family hopes into education, find themselves squeezed between inflated credentials and shrinking opportunity. Many would rather accept low-wage or lower-skill roles under the aegis of government employment than risk joblessness, indebtedness, or migration.
Thus, higher education becomes a “certificate treadmill”: each successive degree is a bet on better job prospects-but often, when all are doing the same, the degree itself loses its distinguishing value. What emerges is credential inflation: once acceptable for higher education, the certificate now becomes necessary for even lower-tier jobs.
The Risks of “Mass Over qualification”
This scenario is not merely about demographic pressure; it carries deeper social, economic, and political hazards.
First, motivation and morale: individuals who expected professional or technical work but end up policing or guarding may feel a betrayal of their aspirations. Residual discontent can stoke social unrest or apathy.
Second, skills atrophy and mismatch: if an MBA or engineer spends years doing duties far beneath their training, their core technical or analytic involvements can atrophy. Over time, their human capital depreciates.
Third, wage stagnation: when more people are willing to take any job for survival, bargaining power erodes. Employers or public agencies can fetter wages, expecting workers to be grateful. The paradox: higher education inflates expectations, but the supply glut deflates returns.
Fourth, distortion of labour allocation: with many graduates occupying jobs at lower rungs, vacancies in “entry-level” roles may remain unfilled by suitably skilled candidates, or distort promotions and productivity dynamics.
Fifth, political capture and informality: large pools of underemployed, credentialed youth are ripe for being co-opted into partisan mobilisation, contract work (home guards, security guards, “delivery partners”), or informal gig roles with poor protections.
Sixth, opportunity cost: resources invested in mass expansion of degree seats might crowd out investments in vocational, technical, or apprenticeship tracks that might have higher returns in local economies.
Finally, if the mismatch grows intolerably severe, public faith in higher education as a pathway to upward mobility will erode, causing disillusionment and political backlash.
Why the GER Target Itself is Problematic (Without Employment Strategy)
The NEP’s 50 percent GER goal is bold, but in many respects it underestimates the scale of structural transformation required.
To begin, even with 28–29 percent GER now, many existing institutions are under-resourced, overcrowded, or disconnected from local economies. Merely adding more seats or colleges is unlikely to guarantee quality or relevance.
Second, student retention and dropout rates are significant- enrolment may not imply completion. For many marginalized students, the path to graduation is rocky (financial constraints, transport, poor schooling feed, language barriers). Without tackling foundational issues, expanding enrolment could produce high attrition.
Third, regional and domain imbalances: some states or metros may overshoot, while rural or backward areas lag. Some streams (arts, humanities, social sciences) may balloon, while STEM, technical, and vocational fields remain starved. That breaks alignment with economic demand.
Fourth, accreditation, curve of quality, and employability: as institutions scale, maintaining standards, teacher quality, infrastructure, industry linkages becomes harder. If many graduates emerge from low-quality colleges, they may end up unemployable despite credentials.
Fifth, without proactive industry absorption and job creation, the chair may be full but the dance floor empty. Crafting thousands of new jobs in appropriate sectors must run in parallel with expanding GER.
In short, unless GER expansion is deeply integrated with economic planning, industrial policy, regional development, small- and medium-enterprise (SME) promotion, and skills ecosystems, it is liable to produce a distorted surplus of degree-holders without purpose.
Case in Point: Madhya Pradesh’s Constable Stampede
The constable recruitment frenzy in MP is not an isolated spectacle-it is a warning beacon.
That highly qualified individuals compete for a class-10–level role suggests desperation rather than ambition. It reveals how the scarcity of secure, stable, well-paid jobs forces even the ostensibly overqualified into what once might have been “fall-back” roles.
This is only the beginning. Suppose over the next decade GER inches toward 50 percent. We might see:
Even more radical underemployment, where a majority of graduates perform lower-order tasks
A permanent shadow workforce of credentialed youth in contract, gig, security, guard, home guard roles
The collapse of distinctions between “professional” and “labour” identities
Political mobilisation of disillusioned youth as a distinct interest group
A vicious cycle: credential oversupply leads to wage collapse, which acts as an entry barrier for new entrants
A breakdown in the legitimacy of higher education as a meritocratic pathway
Unless course correction occurs early, the dream of mass education may turn into the nightmare of mass disillusionment.
Reweaving the Linkage
To salvage the promise in higher education, a shift in mind-set and design is needed. The target (50 percent GER) is not inherently wrong-but it must be retrofitted with intelligent guardrails and ecosystem alignment.
First, job-anchored curriculum design. Every college expansion must be accompanied by co-designed curricula with local industry, SMEs, agribusinesses, public services, cooperatives, NGOs. The notion of “employable generalist” must be rethought: generalists with micro-skills, project experience, entrepreneurial exposure, internships.
Second, mass apprenticeship and work-integrated education must be institutionalized. Students should spend part of their degree embedded in real workplaces—from rural health centres to start-ups to public services. That bridges the often-divergent worlds of campus and market.
Third, regional economic planning aligned with educational expansion. Simply scaling college seats in every district is insufficient. States should map future growth sectors (green energy, agri-tech, tourism, digital services) and orient institutional capacity accordingly. That way geography meets opportunity.
Fourth, robust vocational and technical pathways, not a binary degree/non-degree structure. Many students (and economies) would benefit more from diploma, advanced technical, and certificate tracks that feed directly into jobs rather than forcing everyone into a “degree treadmill.”
Fifth, credential safeguards and degree quality assurance. Scaling must come with stronger accreditation, accountability, faculty mentorship, digital audits, and learning outcome measurement. Colleges that fail to deliver must be restructured or merged, not allowed to exist in name only.
Sixth, active job creation strategies by government (especially local, municipal, rural). Public services, rural infrastructure, community health, school support, ecosystem restoration-even local embroidery, agro-processing, tourism-can offer structured employment for educated youth.
Seventh, transition support, re-skilling, and safety nets. Not everyone will find “dream jobs.” Bridging programs, reskilling efforts, flexible transitions into alternate sectors, and social safety nets can mitigate despair.
Eighth, ongoing institution–employer feedback loops and data systems. If every college tracks where graduates go (into jobs, self-employment, unemployment), then policy can adapt iteratively.
Finally, managing expectations and building alternate narratives of dignity. Society must value technical, artisanal, cooperative, and community-oriented roles, not treat them as “fall-backs.” Many local needs-water management, rural health, climate resilience-can become dignified professional tracks if social narrative supports them.
In sum, NEP’s “50 percent GER by 2035” can be a beacon of inclusive education-or a time bomb of credential oversupply. The difference depends on whether the expansion is tethered to employment ecosystems, quality assurance, and regional planning. If we fail, millions may find themselves overqualified yet underutilized, queued for the lowest rungs of government jobs, their educations turned into burdens rather than bridges. That is the unspoken danger lurking behind the rhetoric of mass access.
(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)
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