At 23 lakh, BA is India's most popular course

At undergraduate level the highest number (35.9%) of students are enrolled in arts/humanities/social sciences courses followed by science (16.5%), engineering and technology (13.5%) and commerce (14.1%), the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) report revealed.

The All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) report released by the HRD ministry has some startling findings.

For the annual survey, the higher education institutions are categorised in 3 broad categories -- university, college and stand-alone institutions.

A total of 962 universities, 38,179 colleges and 9190 stand-alone institutions participated in the survey for the year 2018-19.

The AISHE report revealed that about 79.8% students are enrolled in undergraduate level programmes; only 2.5% colleges run PhD programme and 34.9% colleges run post graduate-level programmes. 

Here are some more important findings of the AISHE report:

10 courses account for 80% of enrollment

Only 10 programmes out of approximately 187 cover 80.3% of the total students enrolled in higher education.

Arts is the most popular course

At undergraduate level the highest number (35.9%) of students are enrolled in arts/humanities/social sciences courses followed by science (16.5%), engineering and technology (13.5%) and commerce (14.1%).

B.A. (23.3 Lakh) degree has been awarded to maximum number of students. B.Sc. (11.6 Lakh) is the second highest followed by B.Com. (9.6 Lakh).

Science is popular at post graduation level

As many as 1,69,170 students are enrolled in Ph.D, which is less than 0.5% of the total student enrolment.

At post graduate level maximum students are enrolled in social science stream; management comes at number two.

At PhD level, maximum number of students are enrolled in Science stream followed by engineering and technology.

UP has the highest student enrolment

Of the total 38,179 colleges, which were surveyed under the AISHE, almost two-thirds (64%) had just 500 students enrolled in them. Even among these, more than half of the colleges have an enrollment of less than 200 students.

Uttar Pradesh comes at number one with the highest student enrolment followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Foreign students

The total number of foreign students enrolled in higher education is 47,427.