Education is NOT free in India, has never been. This is exactly why Wikipedia should not be a citation source. Anyone can edit wrong information and it never gets corrected, perpetuating wrong information. Here are better links to newspaper articles: * http://www.indianexpress.com/news/from-unemployment-to-innov... * http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/who-should-be-ente... * http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/financial-muscle-buys-... * An earlier HN thread "Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5756142 , http://qz.com/86903/students-are-the-victims-and-culprits-of... * An Open Letter to India’s Graduating Classes, By MOHIT CHANDRA, http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/an-open-letter-to-...
In India, some government education institutes are heavily subsidized (think IIT and the state REC's) but the rest of the private colleges you have to BUY seats - so your parents financial clout decides if you get to study at a good university or NOT.
Edit: Ironically, Wikipedia has a page on Capitation fees in India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitation_fee#Capitation_fees...
Yeah, if you can get into the limited government education programs. Most people pay oodles of money to be educated in private colleges 'affiliated' to universities.
Let's take the example of Tamil Nadu (a prosperous Southern state in India). Compare the colleges that comprise Anna University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_University#Campus_and_coll...) and the colleges _affiliated_ to Anna University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Colleges_%26_Institutio...).