The state has more junior colleges than required, but ironically, 65 mandals do not have a single college. While at present there are about 20.41 lakh Inter seats in the state, 23 lakh more are going to be added in the coming academic year – a clear case of concentration of educational institutions in major cities and towns – about 57,000 students who pass out of schools in these 65 mandals, have to travel for over 30 kms every day for their further studies. Ironically, about 12,000 of them are most likely to drop out of higher studies due to lack of colleges close at home.
There are a total of 1,100 mandals in the state. A majority of the mandals where there are no junior colleges are in the Telangana region with Adilabad topping the list with nine mandals. Andhra and Rayalaseema regions put together have about 30 mandals where there are no colleges. While in some mandals the existing government and aided colleges were shut down in the recent past, in others, neither the state government nor private institutions has ventured to set up colleges. For instance, locals
