Delhi
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5 min read
On the third floor of a rundown building in a noisy Delhi market, Mohammad Faiz moves from one lecture to another, filling a notebook with neat rows of text over the course of six hours. After a quick lunch of shawarma rolls with friends at a roadside eatery, where they discuss that morning’s biology lesson, the tired 19-year-old returns to his windowless dorm room, far from his family. He washes his face, puts on his large, round spectacles, and sits at a desk piled with textbooks to start studying again.
Another six hours lie ahead.
Mr. Faiz is among millions of Indian students who spend months, or often years, preparing for fiercely competitive university entrance exams, sometimes by enrolling in private coaching centers such as this one in Delhi. For generations, Indian families have treated education as the springboard to success: If one studies hard and gets into a good college, a secure, well-paying job was almost certain. Economic liberalization in the 1990s strengthened that belief, with the expansion of information technology and engineering sectors creating new opportunities for an emerging middle class.
But this traditional ladder to success is deteriorating. More and more Indians are sitting for these high-stakes exams every year, while spots at elite schools remain scarce, and jobs aren’t growing fast enough to accommodate graduates. At the same time, as families pour more resources into preparing young people for the exams, frequent cheating scandals and test cancellations can make their investment moot.
Recent Gen Z protests gave voice to low-simmering frustrations over this broken system, and showed how young Indians are questioning the expectations of them – as well as what they should expect from their country.
“Our education system is failing us,” says Mr. Faiz. “It’s eroding our faith in the social contract that if you work hard and study well, you will get a job. Now, we are facing a situation where hard work and persistence alone don’t seem to matter.”
Photographs of students who qualified for India’s competitive entrance exams cover a billboard outside a private coaching center in Delhi, where students like Mohammad Faiz spend hours every day studying.
Competition for degrees and jobs
Mr. Faiz sat for this year’s medical school entrance exam, called National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, or NEET, alongside more than 2 million other students. He did well – or better than most, at least. But he didn’t score high enough to secure one of the roughly 60,000 spots at India’s low-cost, government medical colleges. So, he’s back in Delhi, preparing for next year’s test.
“It’s a cutthroat competition,” he says, standing near a wall of photographs of past students who cleared exams, now visual endorsements for the tuition center. “It’s not just about how well you study or how intelligent you are. One would need extraordinary dedication, discipline, resources … and a lot of, lot of luck.”
The pressure does not end with the entrance exam. India has about 365 million people aged 15 to 29, the world’s largest youth population, and the number of young people pursuing higher education has grown faster than the supply of jobs that match their qualifications and expectations. As a result, unemployment remains particularly high among younger graduates.
A 2026 report by Azim Premji University found that nearly 40% of graduates aged 15 to 25 were unemployed, compared with about 20% among those aged 25 to 29. Less than 7% secured permanent, salaried work within a year of graduating. The International Labour Organization discovered a similar pattern. According to its 2024 India Employment Report, unemployment among young people with a graduate degree or higher was 29.1% in 2022 – nearly nine times the rate of those who could not read or write.
All four of Mr. Faiz’s siblings graduated with degrees in either business or science. None have found stable employment. They spend their days job hunting and helping out in his father’s grocery shop in Bulandshahr, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Amir Ullah Khan, a development economist who studies education and employment in India, says that when education repeatedly fails to deliver the opportunities families expect, young people can begin to scale back their ambitions.
“When you lose credibility in your education system, then you also force children to deny themselves their aspirations,” he says. “What results is what, in economics, is called a low equilibrium,” or a mismatch between expectations and market realities that leads to stagnation.
Even Mr. Fiaz has considered giving up and pursuing an easier degree in pharmacology or a related field. But seeing his brothers struggle – and knowing how much his father has already spent to send his youngest to the NEET prep center in Delhi – he has decided to give medical school one more shot.
Mohammad Faiz (right) leaves a NEET coaching center in Delhi, Aug. 8, 2026. Back in his dorm, he’ll continue studying for next year’s exam.
When the ladder works
Some students do make it.
Shradha Gupta secured a place at a government medical college after four failed attempts and five years of preparation. During that time, she says she studied 12 to 15 hours a day.
“I had to give up on my social life,” she says. “There was no break, there was no time for anything beyond my books.”
Ms. Gupta now faces years of training before she obtains her degree, and even that does not guarantee immediate employment. Though unemployment among medical school graduates is considerably lower than the graduate population overall, a 2022 report from the World Health Organization estimates that 4% of qualified doctors are unemployed, and many more have had to pivot to other sectors.
She compares her experience with that of her uncle, who took the medical entrance exam about two decades ago and was the reason she decided to pursue medical school.
“At that time, he knew that if he was talented enough and worked hard, he would get into medical school and become a doctor. He could have the life he wanted,” she says. “Now that I am joining medical school after such a huge struggle, I am still not sure whether I will be as successful in my career as I hope to be.”
She was glad to see the Cockroach Janta Party take to the streets this summer. The movement – which takes its name from a disparaging comment made by India’s chief justice about unemployed Indian youth – demanded the resignation of the country’s education minister over repeated exam leaks and irregularities. It succeeded, with the minister stepping down on July 25.
Now, the movement’s leaders have turned their attention to other issues related to employment, education, and government accountability. In August, they asked supporters to inspect conditions at their nearest government-run grade school, as part of what they describe as a grassroots “fix our schools” campaign to improve everything from teacher attendance to bathroom cleanliness.
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Ms. Gupta, who participated in protests this summer, says it’s important for young people to be part of restoring trust in the education-to-employment pipeline.
“The current system is not only flawed but [also] corrupt. There is a complete lack of fairness,” she says, which has led to “a loss of confidence and a waste of talent.”
