Bombay Iit 36% Of Students Are Yet To Get Placed !! Are Degrees Becoming Irrelevant.. ??

IIT Students Struggle, Educated Yet Unemployed. Why Does a Degree Don’t Guarantee a Job Anymore?

In 2018, Elon Musk dropped a thought on social media stating engineering is the closest thing to magic. Many in India would agree with this statement as we have seen engineering create Rags to Riches. Stories like a family in debt are not living their life debt-free with all the luxuries; shy students turn into tech titans. So, this magic of engineering is secrecy. If the world knows your trick, you are no more in demand. Has engineering reached that stage? Have modern degrees reached that stage? 

There is a reason why most of us agree that IITs are among the top colleges worldwide. For the Indian Institutes of Technology, the assumption is that you crack the IIT and are set for the rest of your life. You will be offered a hefty pay package. But not anymore, as the news from the IITs is worrying in the Bombay campus. 36% of students are yet to be placed. Some 2,000 students had registered for placement. More than 700 are yet to get a job. 

The Illusion of Success 

Here, the talk is about the best engineering colleges in India, among the best globally, yet 36% of its students are still not placed. It’s not just for this year, but last year was more of the same. In 2023, around 33% of students did not get jobs. For other IITs, too, in the Delhi campus, 40% of students were not placed. In 2023, in Kanpur, 31% of students are yet to be placed. 

Note, that IIT Bombay ranked third in 2021 and 2022 and fourth in 2023 among all institutes in India as per the NIRF rankings released by the government.  According to the officials, this year marks the first time students from the computer science and engineering batch, achieving a 100% placement rate, have failed to reach this target. This course remains the most sought-after at this institute. 

In the initial phase of placements in December, it was announced that 85 candidates had received offers exceeding one crore. However, this figure was later corrected, revealing that only 22 students had received such offers. This placement season is set to proceed till May 2024. Despite efforts from the institute, many students face dilemmas regarding job offers, with some opting for alternative paths to employment rather than accepting initial offers.

What does this data tell?

It is a self-evident observation that the job market is struggling, and the data shows something peculiar. The more educated you are, the more challenging it is to find a job. As per the Indian Employment Report 2024 released by the Institute for Human Development and International Labour Organisation (ILO) on March 26, finding a job at this time is very difficult, especially for the more educated youth in India, and 83% of jobless Indians are youth. 1 out of 3 youths in the country is unemployed.

Graduate unemployment in India is almost 30%, unemployment among people with higher education is 18%, and unemployment among people who cannot read or write is just 3.4%. Thus, the chances of one being unemployed in India increase nine times when you get a graduation degree. This is called ‘Educated Unemployment.’ This does not mean people must drop out of their colleges, but you must be more thoughtful about your education.

In 2022, 83% of the unemployed population in India comprised young Indians between 15 and 29. Indian youth are now more educated, but there are not enough jobs for the literate masses. Thus, the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) among youth (until age 25) has been declining. It has reduced from 54% in 2000 to 42% in 2022.

If an IIT cannot get you placed, what chance do other colleges have? So, what is your college degree worth?

Let’s look at engineering first. The average cost of a degree is around 8 lakh rupees, which is around $9500. In contrast, the salary is between 15 and 30,000 per month on average, let’s consider around $200, and this depends on many variables like How the national economy is doing. How good is your college? And How efficient are you as an individual? 

Another popular degree is the MBA. It’s a 2-year course that costs over 15 lakh rupees, around $18,000. For this investment, you get around 40,000 per month on average. Remember, an MBA is a postgraduate degree, so a student has to first spend on graduation, too.

Now, let’s compare these two degrees to another job, say that of a flight attendant. The average course fee is between 50,000 and 2 lakh rs. The average salary after this course is around 40,000 rs. Although these two degrees are very different, the lifestyle, the skillset, and the prospects later on are also different. But the point here is quite simple from a monetary perspective. A flight attendant course today is more valuable than the above two.

Does this mean MBA and Engineering degrees are not worth it?

Many companies see a degree as any other commodity: the higher the supply, the lower the price. In this case, the price does not mean college fees, but it means the salary a student gets after placement. 

Every year, more than 2,30,000 MBA students enter the market, which will keep growing. An MBA student can enroll via scores obtained in exams like CAT(Common Admission Test). Last year, there was a 30% jump in candidates taking the exam. Now, the problem is quite simple: more and more MBA students are entering the market, but the demand is not there. MBA job openings dropped 55% in January this year. 

It’s no secret anymore that this is not the best time to be in the job market. In recent months, some of the top companies in the world have carried out mass lay-offs and implemented hiring freezes and other cost-cutting features.

Top Indian Institutions Struggle to Place Graduates

An official from IIT Bombay’s placement cell attributed the difficulties in inviting companies to campus to the global economic meltdown. Many companies are hesitant to accept pre-decided salary packages. While the institute aims to maintain high average salary packages, there are growing concerns that this focus may not be aligned with the needs and aspirations of all students, leading to complexities in the placement process. 

IIT Bombay is not the first premier institute in India to face placement issues in the current job environment. In February, a letter from BITS Pilani Dean of Alumni Relations, Arya Kumar, went viral on social media requesting support from the alums to find job placements for its 2024 batch of students.

It stated, “You are very well aware of the current industry downturn and its effect on the businesses and prospective hiring. The global economy has not experienced this kind of slump for decades. The technology sector is radically impacted, with around 4 lakhs employees being laid off globally since January 2022.” 

Even a month before, in January 2024, it was IIM Lucknow, one of the top B schools in India, that was forced to walk the same path. The Institute has reached out to its alumni network to secure jobs for 72 students of the current batch to maintain its hundred percent placement legacy for its students.

So what should students do?

The suggestion is quite simple:

• Follow the market
• focus on employability, not on degrees

This seems to be the biggest problem at the moment. Companies want people with specific skill sets; in the past, they would hire people with good college degrees, but now they prefer to build them into industry experts. Students are offered 5-6 LPA and get trained for one year, considered more effective than an MBA at 12 LPA, but who still need to unlearn. 

So broadly, two things must be done:

First, identify emerging skills. These are things in high demand that will give you an edge in the jobs market. 

For example, sustainability skills: Every company and country is going green. So, tremendous opportunities will open up.

Another example will be that of Machine Learning. According to the World Economic Forum, it is the fastest-growing job. There’s an AI model coming out every week, so the people making them will be in demand. The same goes for cyber security. As the world digitises, it needs more cyber guardians. So, parents, teachers, and students must work on it from the school itself.

Second, Creating institutions to develop these skills, maybe special courses or specialised colleges. Take the UAE as an example; they opened the world’s first Artificial Intelligence college, so why can’t India have one? This engineering craze also did not just drop from the sky; parents saw the potential in this degree. Companies and the government needed engineers. Hence, engineering became India’s thing.

But now, the market forces have moved on. The demand is for specialised skills, not degrees. So, Indian colleges need to evolve. Money is not a problem here; India’s education industry is worth $117 billion. Indians are known to splurge on education. What they need is Direction and Awareness.