Campus years are treasured by graduates long after they leave the hallowed portals of their universities. Not only does that time shape their thinking, this phase allows young minds to open up, to understand the path they want to take, and sometimes, more importantly, the road they don’t want to follow.

With that at the very core, the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, a centrally sponsored programme, aims to work with 300-plus state universities and its affiliated colleges to raise the bar of campus life.

Launched in 2013, the RUSA aims at providing strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions. The central funding (in the ratio of 60:40 for general category states, 90:10 for special category states and 100% for union territories) is based on norms and is outcome dependent.

Funds flow from the central ministry through the state governments/union territories to the State Higher Education Councils before reaching the identified institutions. Funding to states would be made on the basis of the critical appraisal of State Higher Education Plans, which would enlist each state’s strategy to address issues of equity, access and excellence in higher education.

RUSA places greater emphasis on the improvement of the quality of teaching-learning processes in order to produce employable and competitive graduates, post-graduates and PhDs. Spread across two plan periods (XII and XIII), the programme focuses on state higher educational institutions and draws upon the best practices from colleges and universities across the nation.

In short, RUSA isn’t a touch-up tint of paint .It is the central government’s plan to develop every state university to its most exemplary version