Would like to second this, but also correct this: 25,000 INR per month is the top 10% of all incomes in India, so 90% of people in India earn less than you if you get 25,000 per month. Source? You ask. The report on the State of Inequality in India created by Stanford academics, the Institute for Competitiveness, and the Government of India. Link below.
So yeah, my guess is that basically the entirety of LI audience is rich: like top 1% rich in India who live under a bubble so big that even its horizon cannot portray poverty.
I disagree, I turned 23 a few months ago and from the 2017-22 Batch. There are certainly many middle-class students in JGLS now, but most of the students are super privileged. I got a 75 Percent scholarship from LSAT and my family still struggled to pay the fees each year, if not for COVID and the lack of hostel fees as a result, it would have been extremely difficult. Students like me in JGLS are an anomaly, extremely few in number.
I remember talking to my classmate in the 1st semester and discussing the scholarship policy when she told me that she had gotten a really good LSAT score too. However, since her family ITR returns were more than 50 Lakh, she didn't qualify for a scholarship. She said it off-handedly like it was so usual but for me, it was very unrelatable. It was only then I understood the privilege I was surrounded by. I am not saying that these were bad people, most of them acknowledged their privilege.
Getting a job and starting to earn was a necessity for me, it was something I couldn't afford to not do. Whereas most of my batchmates have decided to do fancy foreign LLM's costing 50-60 lakhs for 9 months or start in litigation knowing that they don't need to worry about finances at the moment. Most of the privileged people also have really good contacts and get into places with a GPA that would be laughed at if it were a candidate without contacts. Some were only there for the journey and can now kick back and oversee family businesses.
Some of the students live in a bubble and are in a world of their own to the point even interacting with them is irritating. However, most of the people were really good, down to earth people, but yes, they were privileged.
This is rubbish. EWS quota numbers are a bad metric. Average income in india is 25 k per month. That’s average- so that means at least half of india earns less than that. Tell me how you’re middle class again.
EWS limit is 8 lakhs a year, so if your family earn below 8 lakhs a year you are low-income class. The starting point for lower middle class is thus 8 lakhs a year, for a 4-member family. It could go up to 12 lakhs a year, or 15 lakhs in the case of Mumbai. Between 15 lakhs a year to 30 lakhs a year should be upper middle class for a 4-member family, or 35 lakhs in the case of Mumbai. Between 35 lakhs a year to 1 crore a year should be affluent but not HNI. Between 1 crore to 5 crores a year should be lower HNI. Between 5 crores a year to 10 crores a year should be upper HNI. Beyond 10 crores a year should be super-rich.
Err...no. If someone earns a crore a year, they are certainly not 'middle class' by any stretch of imagination, just like those earning 3 lakhs a year aren't.
Absolute numbers is what matters to a university's PR team, not to the students at the University itself. How about you go tell one of the 500 law students that didn't get placed that at least you managed to place 80 students in absolute numbers.
Jindal has more students in just one of its batches than most NLUs have across all years. Really think they need a separate economics school along with all its others to teach people why absolute numbers is not logical when analysing anything qualitatively.
Boss, 2016-2021. I am 24 years old. Again, your idea of "middle-class" is not middle class. 90% of NLUs are only not middle-class, let alone a university where you pay 40 lakhs for education, especially after they've done away with giving scholarships to almost everyone who joined back in 2016 (again, 2016 to 2021, not some ancient pre-historic age that makes my experience an "uncle/aunty" perspective).
You are 2016 batch. So you are a Gen Y JGLS grad . You should be around 30 now and approaching uncle/aunty age. We are talking here of Gen Z and Gen Alpha JGLS people in the 18-24 age group. In this age group 90% at JGLS are middle class now, because of the shortage of merit list seats in NLUs.
If Jindal kids are rich kids, then NLU kids are "bitch kids". Always bitching about Jindal and trying to put them down, even though Jindal has outperformed NLUs in placements (if we look at absolute numbers, which is what matters in the end).
When not bitching about Jindal, they are bitching about how their NLU is better than another NLU. If not that then they are bitching about how their faculty and infrastructure is awful (which is perhaps why they are jealous of Jindal, LOL).
Middle class consists of both the upper middle-class and the lower middle class. The upper middle class are people whose parents earn between 15 lakhs to 1 crore a year before tax (the variance depends on location, age etc). It is this section of the middle class you will see at JGLS.
You can expect a lot of hate-filled replies to your post........LI and its users (most, if not all) hate Jindal, which reminds me of 'sour grapes, ' lol.
Middle class children paying 40 lakhs for a 5-year programme at the end of which not more than 10% will get a job? This is how the rich imagine middle class people to be. So your comment is more stereotypical than what anything else could have been.
You’re mistaken and live in a bubble. Jindal students I know do not seem to understand value for money or how much privilege they really have. They have no idea what poverty is like and literally only call themselves middle class so people won’t envy their wealth. Middle class in this country are Uber drivers , mess contractors, school teachers. Everyone is rightfully upper class and in that context- Jindal students have parents with established careers and more often than not inter generational wealth. They’re not just upper class they’re wealthy. I know it doesn’t feel nice to get called out. But I suggest you look inward.
To take a loan to pay several lakhs a year to study at Jindal would be a financially risky decision simply because there is no guarantee of return on investment. Middle class folks are risk averse.
As a person who has been to Jindal (2016 batch), I can assure you 90% of the class was very privileged. We also believed the same as you, that people are unfairly calling us rich. It is only after you graduate and start working with other people that you realise how privileged you really are compared to the rest of the Indian population. 8 lakhs a year (as it was when I joined, I'm sure it's around 10L-11L now), even with loans, is not something most middle-class people would even consider.
Also please stop complaining about "hardships" of being stereotyped as rich. It's the most white-person problem one could have.
I see a lot of mean comments on LI and social media saying that JGLS students are super-rich. The guys supposedly come to college in Mercedes limos and smoke Cuban cigars. The girls supposedly carry Chanel handbags to class, have billionaire boyfriends, etc.
Not only is the "Rich Kids of Jindal" stereotype wrong but it is also harmful. Yes, there are a few nepo kids at Jindal why do such things, but they are a small minority: not more than 5 percent I should say. Over the years, the demographic Jindal has changed and middle-class children are now the majority. It is very hard to get into the top NLUs, because seats are few and gobbled up by various quotas. The lower-tier NLUs are in shambles. As parents always want the best for their children, they take loans and admit their children in JGLS. They go through a lot of pains. Please don't add to their hardship by taunting them like this.
Also, this is true for other fields as well, especially medicine.
So yeah, my guess is that basically the entirety of LI audience is rich: like top 1% rich in India who live under a bubble so big that even its horizon cannot portray poverty.
https://competitiveness.in/report-on-state-of-inequality-in-india/
I remember talking to my classmate in the 1st semester and discussing the scholarship policy when she told me that she had gotten a really good LSAT score too. However, since her family ITR returns were more than 50 Lakh, she didn't qualify for a scholarship. She said it off-handedly like it was so usual but for me, it was very unrelatable. It was only then I understood the privilege I was surrounded by. I am not saying that these were bad people, most of them acknowledged their privilege.
Getting a job and starting to earn was a necessity for me, it was something I couldn't afford to not do. Whereas most of my batchmates have decided to do fancy foreign LLM's costing 50-60 lakhs for 9 months or start in litigation knowing that they don't need to worry about finances at the moment. Most of the privileged people also have really good contacts and get into places with a GPA that would be laughed at if it were a candidate without contacts. Some were only there for the journey and can now kick back and oversee family businesses.
Some of the students live in a bubble and are in a world of their own to the point even interacting with them is irritating. However, most of the people were really good, down to earth people, but yes, they were privileged.
EWS limit is 8 lakhs a year, so if your family earn below 8 lakhs a year you are low-income class. The starting point for lower middle class is thus 8 lakhs a year, for a 4-member family. It could go up to 12 lakhs a year, or 15 lakhs in the case of Mumbai. Between 15 lakhs a year to 30 lakhs a year should be upper middle class for a 4-member family, or 35 lakhs in the case of Mumbai. Between 35 lakhs a year to 1 crore a year should be affluent but not HNI. Between 1 crore to 5 crores a year should be lower HNI. Between 5 crores a year to 10 crores a year should be upper HNI. Beyond 10 crores a year should be super-rich.
Jindal has more students in just one of its batches than most NLUs have across all years. Really think they need a separate economics school along with all its others to teach people why absolute numbers is not logical when analysing anything qualitatively.
When not bitching about Jindal, they are bitching about how their NLU is better than another NLU. If not that then they are bitching about how their faculty and infrastructure is awful (which is perhaps why they are jealous of Jindal, LOL).
So bitch kids is an apt description.
No amount of spin can take away from the fact that the LSAT score is a joke. It is about brining money to pay your way through.
The rest is all amazing I am sure.
To take a loan to pay several lakhs a year to study at Jindal would be a financially risky decision simply because there is no guarantee of return on investment. Middle class folks are risk averse.
Also please stop complaining about "hardships" of being stereotyped as rich. It's the most white-person problem one could have.
Not only is the "Rich Kids of Jindal" stereotype wrong but it is also harmful. Yes, there are a few nepo kids at Jindal why do such things, but they are a small minority: not more than 5 percent I should say. Over the years, the demographic Jindal has changed and middle-class children are now the majority. It is very hard to get into the top NLUs, because seats are few and gobbled up by various quotas. The lower-tier NLUs are in shambles. As parents always want the best for their children, they take loans and admit their children in JGLS. They go through a lot of pains. Please don't add to their hardship by taunting them like this.
Also, this is true for other fields as well, especially medicine.