Top Talent, Elite Colleges, and Migration: The IITs

I married someone from an IIT/IIM background and I think the public should really meet them and reduce this hype. My wife, while relatively smart and working at a FAANG - is not that smart (I'm trying to use my words respectfully). I've met many of her friends from a similar background from IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, and IIM-A. Infact the IIT-JEET exam is not even "that" competitive, I think a lot of people get caught up in their own smoke and believe millions of indians take it every year - the fact is that less people take the IIT-JEET (a couple of hundred thousand), than some of our exams here - like for law school and medical school. Overall, while I think my wife is a wonderful person, I would peg her and many of her classmates at the equilance of a UC Davis graduate - (Cal/Stanford alum myself, but going off reference points off my high school cohort).

Whether IIT are &quot;that smart&quot; or not like 1differential&#x27;s comment talks about is irrelevant.<p>IIT have prestige. If they care about leveraging that prestige and incentivize their graduates to some lifestyle choices there&#x27;s ways to do it.<p>One example is the elite French &quot;école polytechnique&quot; (think the #1 IIT equivalent in engineering): tuition is waived, you even get paid a stipend as a student... But if you don&#x27;t serve in French public service for 10 years after graduation, you have to repay it.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;programmes.polytechnique.edu&#x2F;en&#x2F;ingenieur-polytechnicien-program&#x2F;tuition-fees" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;programmes.polytechnique.edu&#x2F;en&#x2F;ingenieur-polytechni...</a><p>&gt; There are no study costs for French students, on the condition that they work for the civil service for at least 10 years within the 20 years following their graduation. Otherwise, they must repay the tuition fees<p>That would work as a &quot;brain drain&quot; tax.

I wonder whether the allure of migrating out of the country has lessened somewhat among more recent graduates.<p>Speaking anecdotally, of my group of six friends (we graduated from an IIT about ten years ago), one never expressed any interest in traveling (he subsequently went to an IIM and worked for a FAANG in India), two spent several years in the US but went back, and a fourth has expressed interest in returning to India. All of us who came to the US worked for FAANGs or got Masters &#x2F; MBAs &#x2F; PhDs from very well-ranked American universities.<p>More personally, living in the US has not come across as unambiguously better than living in India. I&#x27;m in academia, and I cannot imagine an institute like IISc being substantially more difficult to navigate than where I currently am. Society is more broad-minded, politics is (comparatively) less of a shithole, and a few metrics such as pollution and bureaucratic corruption are somewhat better. On the other hand, I am half the world away from aging family, it is easier to be lonely, I miss the food, and with a FAANG salary, I could live like royalty in India.<p>Life in India is not for me, but I suspect that the range of opinions is getting more varied than (say) thirty years ago.

There was a CNN article about India’s time-bomb of unemployment. Job creation is not able to keep up with number of applicants. The net effect is a further intensification of competition : be it for college or school admissions or jobs. The average number of applicants for an open job slot has increased two-fold or something more.. this changing environment has a bearing on what IIT graduates plan for their next step