Survey covers entire Higher Education Institutions in the country. Institutions are categorised in 3 broad Categories; University, College and Stand-Alone Institutions. Lists of 621 Universities, 32974 colleges and 11095 Stand Alone Institutions have been prepared during the survey.

• 554 Universities, 17023 Colleges and 5713 Stand Alone Institutions have responded. Out of 554 universities, 225 are affiliating.
• Whole survey was conducted through online mode for which a dedicated portal (http://aishe.gov.in) has been developed. The e-version of DCF expands according to the structure/size of the Institution. No investigator is sent to the Institution to collect the data. One unique feature is that the filled in DCFs are always available on the portal, which can be seen by the Institutions and higher level authorities.
• 178 Universities are privately managed. 200 Universities are located in rural area.
• 7 Universities are exclusively for girls, 2 in Tamil Nadu and 1 each in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
• In addition to 1 Central and 13 State Open Universities, there are 95 Dual mode Universities, which offer education through distance mode. Out of 95 Dual mode Universities, maximum (18) are in Tamil Nadu.
• There are 89 Technical, 34 Agriculture, 25 Medical, 17 law and 9 Veterinary Universities.
• The top 6 States in terms of highest number of colleges in India are Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
• Bangalore district tops in terms of number of colleges with 885 colleges followed by Hyderabad with 554 colleges. Top 50 districts have about 40% of colleges.
• College density, i.e. the number of colleges per lakh eligible population (population in the age-group 18-23 years) varies from 5 in Bihar and Jharkhand to 54 in Puducherry as compared to All India average of 23.
• 54.3% Colleges are located in Rural Area. 9.1% Colleges are exclusively for Girls.
• Only 1.9% Colleges run Ph.D. and 33.4% Colleges run Post Graduate Level programmes.
• There are 33.8% Colleges, which run only single programme, out of which 81.1% are privately managed. Among these, 36.6 % colleges run B.Ed Courses only.
• 73% Colleges are privately managed; 59% Private-unaided and 14% Private-aided. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, both have more than 80% Private-unaided colleges, whereas, Bihar has only 5.2% and Assam 12.2% Private-unaided colleges.
• 30% of the Colleges are having enrolment less than 100 only 4% Colleges have enrolment more than 3000.
• Total enrolment in higher education has been estimated to be 2.75 million with 1.55 million boys and 1.2 million girls. Girls constitute 44% of the total enrolment.
• Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in Higher education in India is 19.4, which is calculated for 18-23 years of age group. GER for male population is 20.8 and for females it is 17.9. For Scheduled Castes, it is 13.5 and for Scheduled Tribes, it is 11.2% as compared to the national GER of 19.4.
• Distance enrolment constitutes 12.1% of the total enrolment in higher education, of which 40.1% are female students.
• About 80% students are enrolled in Undergraduate level programme. 77798 students are enrolled in Ph.D. that is less than 0.5% of the total student enrolment.
• Maximum numbers of Students are enrolled in B.A. programme followed by B.Com and B.Sc. programmes. Only 15 Programmes out of approximately 150 cover 82% of the total students enrolled in higher education.
• At Undergraduate, level the highest number (47%) of students is enrolled in Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences courses followed by Engineering & Technology (16%), Commerce (13%) and Science (11%).
• At Ph.D. level, maximum number of students is enrolled in Science stream followed by Social Science. On the other hand at Post Graduate level maximum students are enrolled in Social Science stream and Science comes at number two.
• Uttar Pradesh comes at number one with the highest student enrolment followed by Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
• Scheduled Casts students constitute 11.1% and Scheduled Tribes students 4.4% of the total enrolment. 27.6% students belong to Other Backward Classes. 3.8% students belong to Muslim Minority and 1.8% from other Minority Community.
• The total number of foreign students enrolled in higher education is 27,531.
• The foreign students come from 153 different countries from all across the globe. The top 10 countries constitute 61% of the total foreign students enrolled. Highest share of students come from the neighboring countries, of which Nepal is 18%, followed by Iran (9%), Afghanistan (8%), and Bhutan (5%). Sudan and United States constitutes 4% each and China, Iraq and Sri Lanka constitutes 3% of the foreign students.
• There are more than 70% colleges running in Private sector; aided and unaided taking together, but it caters to only 61% of the total enrolment.
• The total number of teachers in responding Institutions is 7,65,349. Out of which more than half about 62.8% are male teachers and 37.85% are female teachers.
• At all-India level there are merely 59 female teachers per 100 male teachers.
• Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) in Universities and Colleges is 26.4.
• Among non-teaching staff, the share of Group-C is the highest with 40%, while Group-D seconds it with 33%. Group-A and Group-B comprise of 13 and 14 per cent non-teaching posts respectively.
• The average number of females per 100 male non-teaching staff is 33.