Indian Middle Class Makes Mission Out of Sending Children to College

Primary focus on engineering, medical studies.

Chennai, India

In one of Chennai’s ubiquitous academic-coaching classes, a hundred 12th graders are crammed into a purple room, about 30 feet long and 25 feet wide.

The energy-sapping temperature is well over 100 degrees despite the constant whirr of overhead fans. On a wooden dais, Muthukrishnan Arulselvan draws a triangle on a blackboard, marks angles inside it, and explains a geometrical formula into a microphone. The students listen, rapt, although it is nearly 10 p.m.

When Mr. Arulselvan asks a question, the students rush to reply in a chorus. When the tutor poses a problem, they bury their heads in notebooks, chewing on pencils, eager to...