A second shot at the IIT dream

CAmpus FestivalOn a humid summertime weekend at the IIT Madras campus, something singular is taking localize. The fixture undergrad students of the campus ar on holidays. Replacing them are 5,000 students of all age groups, from across the world, who have enrolled in an online degree program offered by IIT Madras, called the Bachelor of Science. These students are here for a special five-day campus festival. A young mother has travelled from Dubai to meet her “classmates” while a gentleman attends with his son –– both students of the online degree.Aspirations and Unique ExperiencesFor 60-year-old Nagarajan, a student on campus, studying at IIT Madras was always an aspiration. “I could not pursue it because of the intensely competitive admissions process and life circumstances,” he says, adding that he has classmates in different age groups and that makes it a unique experience for him.Second ChancesDelhi-based twins Arnav Kohli and Archit Kohli, both 21, are exploring the campus with their parents. The Kohlis couldn’t crack the JEE to get into a top IIT, so they joined Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology (MSIT) for BTech and took up the online BS degree as a second degree –– allowed by University Grants Commission (UGC) since 2022. “This program feels like a second chance to access IIT and completing it with a strong CGPA has given me more confidence in my academic ability,” says Arnav Kohli. “Competing on the leaderboards with other students and, of course, with my twin brother, has made the learning process highly engaging,” adds Archit Kohli.Flexible and Affordable EducationFlexible and low cost, using technologyMore than 36,000 students are currently enrolled in the online degree offered by IIT-Madras’s Centre for Outreach and Digital Education (CODE). The team is the same one that runs the massively successful government upskilling initiative, National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), where top institutions offer certificate courses with real-life examinations. (In 2025, NPTEL offered 2,000 courses with 3.64 million enrolments). In 2021, when the CODE team wanted to start an online undergraduate program, the idea was simple –– to give a chance to those who want to study at IIT, but couldn’t take the JEE or afford the education when they were 18-20 years of age. “Today, getting entry into a good branded UG degree in India has become very expensive and competitive,” says professor Andrew Thangaraj, chair, CODE, adding that this concern is what led the faculty at IIT Madras to start this online undergraduate degree.Cost and AccessibilityFor an IIT seat, parents spend around ₹15-20 Lakhs in coaching and BTech tuition fees. This is high for most families in India. “We wanted to offer a degree to anyone with capability for under ₹5 lakh,” says Thangaraj, adding that it was important for them to scale high quality education at low cost, using technology. “We want to democratise education and access to all.”Comparative Tuition FeesOnline undergraduate degrees offered by top universities across the world, from University of London to University of Pennsylvania in the US, cost between $15,000 to $50,000. The IIT Madras 4-year BS degree program costs around ₹3.5-4.5 lakh, roughly $5,000. And 40% of their students comes from low-income families, whose education is subsidised further.Revenue GenerationEven with the low tuition fee, however, the program is profitable thanks to the number of students signing up. Though the team doesn’t share official revenue, each semester, IIT Madras receives approximately ₹34-45 crore from active students for course signups. This means a revenue of around ₹100-140 crore per annum for three semesters from the BS degree program alone, which the institute uses towards tech infrastructure, cloud expenses and salaries of the 300-odd people working at CODE.Admission ProcessOther than subsidised education, entry to the program is also democratised. Instead of an entrance exam like the JEE, anyone can sign-up for the course. One does a foundational course to give a qualifier exam to continue towards the four-year degree. It’s easier to get in but gets harder as you make progress, explains Thangaraj. Out of 100 people who apply for the BS program, only five finish the degree. Others choose to drop out at different structured exit stages that the program offers –– a one-year or two-year diploma or a three-year BSc. At the end of it, it’s a similar percentage of IIT graduates after the JEE-Advanced, says Thangaraj.Challenges of CompletionSince 2021, when the degree started, only 794 students have completed the actual degree though more than 270,000 students have signed up. “This academic rigour is required to keep the quality of the education up,” says Thangaraj.Maintaining QualityUsing technology to keep up academic quality“Academic rigour” is a term that is repeated by most of the faculty and students associated with the program. This is thanks to a constant stream of criticism against quality of education possible through an online degree, and a deep-seated prejudice against those who haven’t passed or given a tough exam to get into an IIT. To tackle nay-sayers, the exams are tough and the team shuns proctored online exams, instead choosing to hold monthly in-person examinations for the courses at 200 centres across India and West Asia. The course also focuses less on theory like a traditional BTech degree and more on technical skills.Industry-Relevant SkillsThe focus is on industry skills like data science, electronic systems, aeronautics, and space technology, so the students are employable within 1-2 years of pursuing the program. “The students from the BS degree outperform our experienced consultants,” says Binoy Aravindakshan, director of Learning and Development, KPI Partners, based in Hyderabad, who has hired 18 students from the BS pool in the last year. Online education needs self-motivation and this helps these students be agile in fast moving fields like enterprise AI. “Thanks to their strong desire to learn, they develop skills in emerging technologies very quickly,” he says, adding that the BS online degree student quality is better than most of the BTech students he has seen from private colleges in the country.Hybrid Learning ExperienceWhat also helps in keeping motivation high is the hybrid format –– like the in-campus annual festival –– is something that the team has actively included to add in authenticity and reduce drop outs. Other than this, the program structure includes physical meetups in more than 200 cities across the world, weekly live sessions, interactions, competitions, assignments and online forums and unofficial Whatsapp groups. In 2025 alone, there were 650 meetups in different cities from Gorakhpur to Ajmer.Personal StoriesIt’s this hybrid nature of the degree that has kept Indranil Bhattacharyya, 28, who works at Accenture and joined the program in 2022, studying, even though he finds the studies really hard. “This degree gave me my first internship, my first full-time job, helped me secure my current job and made me meet my wife,” he says, adding that for people like him, who couldn’t attend regular college, this is a unique opportunity to experience campus life.Second Chances at EducationAnother opportunity through educationNot everyone gets the perfect educational opportunity at the age of 18 or 20, some people need to restart later in life, says 44-year-old Soumya V Namboodiripad. She started the program in 2021, encouraged by its flexible format, and now works as a senior data analyst at CODE. “This program gave me the confidence to restart my career. If it wasn’t available, I would have continued as a homemaker,” she says.Democratisation of EducationThis program gives a second chance, agrees Rajat Goel, 45, a Lucknow-based businessman. Goel lost his education business during Covid and after his wife’s encouragement in 2022, joined the degree program. “This is a rare chance for me to pursue serious education from IIT Madras without leaving my work, family responsibilities or life,” he says, adding that the degree allows students from small towns, working professionals and people with family responsibilities like him to access high-quality education. “That’s real democratisation of education,” he says, adding that India needs these models as millions in the country still can’t access higher education.The author tracks the evolving relationship between science, technology and modern society. She also works as a philanthropy researcher and advisor. Views expressed are personal.