Yale Univ is not for rich Indians alone: Yale president

NEW YORK: Yale, rated as one of the world's top universities, isn't the preserve of children of the rich alone. Its doors are open to the brightest and best around the globe including India, whose 'typical' students get a 90 percent scholarship, says Yale president Richard Levin.

"Many students and their families abroad assume that Yale is accessible only to the children of wealthy families. That's not the case," Levin said at the Yale Club of New York.

"We admit our students first and then look at their financial aid applications. Once a student gets admission, we look at their need to make up the difference. Typical Indian students get a scholarship to cover 90 percent of their expenses."

But admission to Yale is not based on classroom performance alone. There has to be evidence of character, of entrepreneurship and of engagement with extra-curricular activities, something not emphasised in Asian countries.

"So it's very difficult to calibrate which students from Asia would thrive in our environment. Here they have to study very hard, but also almost all have a very significant involvement in arts and politics," Levin said.

Asked what courses students from India preferred, he said their choices have been pretty diverse over the last 150 years ranging from economics to engineering and science.

But India has the largest foreign country representation in the business school. "It's a little disproportionate there," he quipped.

Yale's broadening engagement with India too isn't new, Levin said. Yale has been committed to a broad effort at internationalising its student body and opening itself to the world for several years to attract more students from overseas.

"Yale's history with India goes a long way back," he said, noting that it had the first professorship in Sanskrit in North America in the late 1840s.

Today, there are 40 different faculty members collaborating on projects or research about India. "So it's a fair volume of activity on the campus."

However, a major institutional push towards India started five-six years ago when its South Asian Studies Council was created. And in January 2005 Levin himself led a delegation to India to explore collaborations and broaden the relationship.

The trip led to a number of exchanges in fields like public health networking and environmental studies. Now, Yale, hoping to expand its ties with India, seeks to look for further opportunities.

"That's one of the reasons of getting involved in India@60 celebrations. It gives us a chance to meet people from India and people interested in India," he said, referring to ongoing talks about research projects, university reforms, faculty members and students-exchange and joint conferences.

Yale was working with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) for holding joint conferences to engage the US as well as other countries on environmental issues like global warming.

"We feel to get action on global warming in the United States, it helps the argument that India and China are also going to participate. And it helps the argument very much in India and China that the US is doing something. So we are trying a three way process," Levin said.

Asked to comment on a suggestion at a recent panel discussion about whether the question before the US was 'India or China, then it became India and China and in future it could be India with China", he thought the second scenario more likely than the last.

"I think the interests of these countries don't align perfectly," said Levin, noting that economic and social changes in India and China were different.

"While India is committed to the democratic process, China is not. So it's quite a difference of perspective vis-à-vis strategies." Both the countries were pursuing similar ends in economic and social development, but pursuing it differently, he noted, discounting somewhat the possibility of  India, China and Russia getting together.

Levin agreed that India and the US were natural partners. "I think so. Basically they are two different types of multicultural democracies...

"At best, the US has been a melting pot of different cultures. At worst, deep cultural, racial differences  have been intractable for a long time - a legacy of slavery - in America."

The linguistic differences in the US too have been transitory with everyone learning English. On the other hand, "India has so much more difficulties. It has persistent linguistic differences, a great number of diversities and deep religious divides. Yet it works. It's quite remarkable actually".

"This is an exciting thing for humanity to see that a country of a billion people can generate such savings and investment behaviour despite all the problems, institutional barriers and infrastructure constraints," Levin said.