Sanjeev Sanyal bats for freely available university education in line with Trump's 'American Academy' push

Sanjeev Sanyal

Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), believes freely available university education will be a game changer even as AI (artificial intelligence) has become an inevitable part of our future.

"AI allows for top quality university education to be made available for free (as I have written many times)," he said while pushing for freely available university education in every country, just like the one proposed by US President Donald Trump.

"This should be done in every country in the world. Those who wish to attend an old-style bricks university can continue to do so, but freely available university education is a game changer," Sanyal wrote on X. He was responding to a post on Trump's 'American Academy' plan.

This should be done in every country in the world. AI allows for top quality university eduction to be made available for free (as I have written many times). Those who wish to attend an old-style bricks university can continue to do so, but freely available university education https://t.co/2C2gP2vOYt

Sanjeev Sanyal (@sanjeevsanyal) March 19, 2025

As part of his 2024 election campaign, the US President had proposed the idea of American Academy to make world class education available to every American free of cost.

He announced that his government will endow a new university called American Academy by "taking billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing and suing excessively large private universities".

The mission? To make a truly world-class education available to every American, free of charge, and do it without adding a single dime to the federal debt.

"This institution will gather an entire universe of the highest quality educational content, covering the full spectrum of human knowledge and skills, and make that material available to every American citizen online for free," the Republican President said.

Sanjeev Sanyal has, in the past too, voiced his opinion on how AI is likely to completely transform how offline universities operate. "The way we give out education in the lecture format, which is still the dominant format of education, especially for the higher end of high school and certainly for most universities, is outdated. I personally cannot see how we do not have to completely restructure this," he said at a summit.

Trump emphasized that American Academy will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed.

This will be a revolution in higher education, he said, while adding that it will provide life-changing opportunities for tens of millions of our citizens.