01524nam a22001217a 4500008004100000100004600041245005600087260003600143300003600179520105100215650010001266773003601366260731b           ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aKarthika, Gopal S. and Sunija, Beegum N.   aStudent financial aid in higher education in India   aSocial Science in Perspective    a18(2), Apr-Jun, 2026: p.274-293  aThe study examines India’s higher education expenditure and student financial aid between 2014-15 and 2023-24, a period market by a strategic push toward a “Viksit Bharat” by 2047. By employing a descriptive methodology based on secondary data from official government of India websites and budget documents, the research aims to analyse expenditure trends and evaluate the role of finical aid in promoting educational equity. The findings reveal that while to total higher education spending more than doubled in absolute terms form 33.61% to 44.90% student financial aid witnessed a dramatic decline, falling from 8.55% of the higher education budget in2015-16 to just 2.49& in 2023-24. The study concludes that India’s funding model is shifting toward institutional infrastructure and self sustaining models, often through mechanism like HEFA, which may impede the national education policy 2020’s goal of a 50% gross enrollment ratio by placing an increasing financial burden on economically disadvantage households. – Reproduced   aHigher education, Higher education expenditure, National education policy, Student aid, India.   aSocial Science in Perspective