Ashoka University to start under-graduate liberal arts programme from Aug 1

Spread over a 25-acre campus, offering residential facilities to all students, Ashoka University-an independent non-profit private university established by the Haryana Private Universities Act-is all set to start its undergraduate courses from August 1 this year. It is located in the Rajiv Gandhi Education City in Kundli, National Capital Region.

The total cost of the four-year UG course will be around Rs 20 lakh (Rs 5 lakh per year) including the fee and accommodation. It will provide scholarships ranging from 25 per cent to 100 per cent to over 200 students. Vineet Gupta, MD, Jamboree Education and one of the founding members of the university said only 40 per cent of the applicants have requested for scholarships. "We had expected it to go up to 60 per cent of the applicants," Gupta said.

Ashoka's target is getting those bright students who don't make it to the IITs, NITs or other tier-1 UG colleges across India. For instance, if a student has scored 88 per cent but has an entrepreneurial record to show, writes an impromptu essay and clears the interview, he or she can get admission into Ashoka. "The Board will analyse each and every application so that the smart and bright student gets an opportunity to study at this university that will offer Ivy-league kind of education," said Pramath Raj Sinha, Founding Dean, Indian School of Business, and one of the founding members of Ashoka University.

The first UG batch is expected to start with 350 students, while the full capacity of the University is 4,000 students. The first phase of the University has cost Rs 140 crore that has come from 19 founders such as Puneet Dalmia, MD, Dalmia Cements; Pramath Raj Sinha, Founding Dean, Indian School of Business; Ashish Dhawan, senior MD, ChrysCapital; Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder, naukri.com; Siddharth Yog, Co-founder, Xander Group, to name a few. "Now, corporations too are showing interest," said Ashish Dhawan, one of the founders.

It will further expand to two more phases over the next seven-eight years with a total cost of Rs 500 crore. There will be 36 course credits in areas such as social economics, humanities, social sciences, natural and applied sciences that include 12 major credits and 12 foundation courses over eight semesters.

"We have introduced the interdisciplinary majors like computer science and entrepreneurial leadership, economics and finance, English and journalism, politics and society, and so on besides pure majors in the arts stream, which will give a variety to the students" added Sinha, and said that students can very well switch disciplines as well.

Ashoka has partnered with University of  Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Carleton College and Sciences Po, and is in talks with other top global colleges. It has recruited teaching talent from top US and British universities such as Cornell University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, California Institute of technology, to name a few, besides hiring Indian talent.

"About 20 to 25 faculty members who will be joining us full-time when the first academic session commences from August," added Sinha.

Besides Indian cities, Ashoka received applications from SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries and African countries as well.

Ashoka dubbed the Rhodes Scholarship in India through the Young India Fellowship in 2011 - a pilot programme on liberal art subjects of Ashoka University-with the current batch size of 100. The YIF graduates have been hired by recruiters like McKinsey & Co, Cipla, to name a few, at an average salary compensation of Rs 9 lakh.

Thus, founding members of Ashoka University-Gupta, Sinha and Dhawan-argue that there's a market for quality liberal arts education and they echo the sentiment that placements for the UG graduates won't be an issue in the future.