Higher Education Report Card Series · Companion Index

Higher Education Development Index (HEDI) 2023-24

A composite ranking of all 36 States/UTs on Access, Equity, Teaching Resources and Institutional Capacity — built from the same AISHE 2023-24 data behind the Higher Education Report Cards, using the same transparent, formula-driven approach as SEDI 2025-26.

90.1
Highest · Puducherry
17.4
Lowest · Bihar
54.2
National mean
36
States/UTs ranked

Why a composite index?

The State/UT Report Cards answer “where does each state stand on any single indicator.” HEDI answers a harder question: taken together, which states are furthest ahead — or behind — overall?

Not the first attempt, but the first open, annually-updatable one. NIEPA’s Educational Development Index (2005-06–2014-15) and NITI Aayog’s SEQI were both school-level only. NIRF ranks individual institutions, not states. A genuine academic precedent exists — Jain & Gulati (2024/2025), Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, built a DEA-based “benefit-of-the-doubt” HEDI — but it isn’t a public spreadsheet, isn’t tied to an annual series, and isn’t built on AISHE 2023-24. This HEDI fills that specific gap: transparent weights, an editable workbook, and the newest data.

Methodology at a glance

Four domains, each normalized 0–100 (min-max across the 36 States/UTs) and combined with editable weights.

30%

Access

GER (Total) & progress toward the NEP 2020 50%-GER-by-2035 target.

30%

Equity

Gender Parity Index, SC GER, ST GER, and faculty gender balance.

20%

Teaching Resources

Pupil-Teacher Ratio, Regular Mode (lower = better).

20%

Institutional Capacity

College density per lakh 18–23 population.

Full ranking: all 36 States & UTs

India shown as a reference line (not ranked) for comparison.

5Top 5 6 Rank 6–15 16Rank 16–25 26Rank 26–36
Rank State/UT Region Access Equity Teaching
Resources		 Institutional
Capacity		 HEDI Score
1 Puducherry South 100.0 80.4 97.9 82.0
90.1
2 Karnataka South 67.4 71.7 85.4 100.0
78.8
3 Tamil Nadu South 84.7 77.5 89.6 59.0
78.4
4 Telangana South 76.2 75.5 83.3 78.7
77.9
5 Himachal Pradesh North 76.1 74.3 70.8 70.5
73.4
6 Uttarakhand Central 80.0 67.8 72.9 57.4
70.4
7 Andhra Pradesh South 54.9 63.2 87.5 70.5
67.0
8 Kerala South 65.7 44.5 89.6 68.9
64.8
9 Sikkim Northeast 68.4 69.7 83.3 27.9
63.7
10 Mizoram Northeast 47.2 87.3 83.3 32.8
63.6
11 Delhi North 85.2 72.5 77.1 0.0
62.7
12 Maharashtra West 56.8 61.2 75.0 55.7
61.6
13 Arunachal Pradesh Northeast 52.8 82.4 75.0 26.2
60.8
14 Chandigarh North 89.4 56.1 75.0 9.8
60.6
15 Goa West 51.9 60.3 89.6 44.3
60.4
16 Manipur Northeast 45.4 70.4 85.4 39.3
59.7
17 Haryana North 54.0 62.0 72.9 44.3
58.2
18 Rajasthan North 43.3 53.0 66.7 63.9
55.0
19 Punjab North 46.1 50.6 85.4 44.3
54.9
20 Meghalaya Northeast 42.5 71.2 68.8 21.3
52.1
21 Gujarat West 37.4 62.6 64.6 42.6
51.4
22 Chhattisgarh Central 34.5 56.1 70.8 37.7
48.9
23 Madhya Pradesh Central 42.4 55.8 62.5 32.8
48.5
24 Odisha East 34.6 53.0 70.8 39.3
48.3
25 Lakshadweep South 0.0 33.8 100.0 85.2
47.2
26 Uttar Pradesh Central 36.6 59.6 50.0 37.7
46.4
27 Nagaland Northeast 22.0 54.3 85.4 31.1
46.2
28 Andaman & Nicobar Islands South 12.5 56.6 91.7 14.8
42.0
29 Assam Northeast 24.9 59.5 68.8 14.8
42.0
30 Jammu & Kashmir North 27.9 45.1 75.0 19.7
40.8
31 West Bengal East 33.8 44.8 62.5 13.1
38.7
32 Tripura Northeast 30.7 50.0 45.8 8.2
35.0
33 Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu West 6.7 33.9 79.2 11.5
30.3
34 Ladakh North 9.5 19.1 93.8 14.8
30.3
35 Jharkhand East 24.0 43.3 18.8 1.6
24.3
36 Bihar East 20.3 37.5 0.0 0.0
17.4
– India (reference) – 44.3 59.1 72.9 39.3 53.5

Regional pattern: South leads, East lags sharply

Average HEDI score by region. The South’s average is more than double the East’s — and every East-region State/UT sits in the bottom half of the national table.

South
(8 States/UTs)

68.3

range 42.0–90.1
North
(8 States/UTs)

54.5

range 30.3–73.4
Central
(4 States/UTs)

53.6

range 46.4–70.4
Northeast
(8 States/UTs)

52.9

range 35.0–63.7
West
(4 States/UTs)

50.9

range 30.3–61.6
East
(4 States/UTs)

32.2

range 17.4–48.3

Where one domain masks another

Averaging four domains can hide a state that’s excellent in one dimension and badly deficient in another. Some standout cases:

Most uneven — one domain props up the rest

Delhi Access 85Capacity 0

Ranks 11th overall — excellent enrolment access, but near-zero college density given its small, dense urban geography.

Chandigarh Access 89Capacity 10

Ranks 14th — the same urban-density story as Delhi pulls it far below where its Access score alone would place it.

Lakshadweep Teaching 100Access 0

Ranks 25th — a tiny enrolment base mechanically produces a perfect PTR score alongside the country’s lowest GER.

Most balanced — no domain is an outlier

Himachal Pradesh Rank 5

Every domain scores 70–76 — consistently strong rather than propped up by one standout indicator.

Telangana Rank 4

Every domain scores 75–83, the tightest spread among the top 10.

Puducherry Rank 1

Strong-to-excellent (80–100) across all four domains — the national leader is not a one-metric outlier.

Data limitations

Disclosed plainly, not buried — five things about how this index is built that a careful reader should know before treating any single rank as definitive.

Several adjacent ranks are near-ties, not meaningful differences. Andaman & Nicobar Islands (28th) beats Assam (29th) by just 0.02 HEDI points; Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (33rd) beats Ladakh (34th) by 0.03; Sikkim (9th) beats Mizoram (10th) by 0.08. These four pairs are statistically indistinguishable.
Teaching Resources uses Regular Mode PTR, not Reg.+Dist. — a real choice. Delhi’s Reg.+Dist. PTR (49:1) is more than double its Regular Mode PTR (20:1); a reader preferring the other measure gets a different Teaching Resources ranking.
SC GER capping at 100 (for Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram) prevents likely small-denominator artefacts from dominating the Equity domain, but is a judgment call, not a neutral default.
Domain weights (30/30/20/20) are a stated choice, not empirically validated against outcome data. Change them in the downloadable workbook to test your own priorities.

How this compares to the only prior academic HEDI

Jain & Gulati’s DEA-based HEDI (JARHE, 2024/2025) found Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh and Puducherry at the top and Bihar, Odisha and Tripura at the bottom. This index agrees strongly at the extremes — Bihar ranks last in both — and diverges in explainable ways in the middle: Chandigarh places 14th here specifically because of its Institutional Capacity score, not because its Access or Equity performance is in doubt.

References

Companion index to SEDI 2025-26, using the same normalization and domain-index architecture for methodological consistency across the site’s school and higher-education indices. · Prof. Arun C. Mehta · educationforallinindia.com