Paradoxes of Higher Education: A Critical look at how our Universities are becoming Contradictory Institutions

This paper tries to understand how in neoliberal societies like India universities are becoming contradictory institutions. How massification of higher education and dramatic rise of private universities, has changed the very character of universities in India; leading to the loss of higher ideals, orientation and transformative possibilities open to university education, giving birth to one-dimensional forms of knowledge and educational ideal, devaluing its role as a critical public space and guardian of the cognitive structure of society.