Super 30: Educating the Elite Poor

In the summer of 2019 in New Delhi, S K Shahi and his daughter, Meenakshi, faced a difficult problem. India had 19 centers of their non-profit, the Center for Social Responsibility and Leadership. Also called the 'Super 30' program, this offered free training for India's rigorous engineering entrance exam, the Joint Entrance Examination, to 30 — or sometimes 50 or 100 — high school graduates, selected by merit. Shahi and Meenakshi ran these centers using the corporate social responsibility funds donated by large state-owned companies in India, and some private companies. They had been operational for over a decade, with alumni working in academia, top tech companies, and education, having graduated from India's best colleges. They now had a difficult decision to make: should they expand in large metropolis cities - New Delhi; Kanpur; Mumbai — that would attract talented youth from all over India? Or else, given India's remote geographies and uneven distribution of income and educational benefits, was it best to expand to these tough regions to help those who most needed it? An additional source of concern was the operational and logistical cost of running centers in different parts of the country. What was the best way forward: city or town, urban or remote? New Delhi or Kashmir?