Granting autonomy to colleges will ensure that the public good that is higher education, will become a private business. ‘Autonomy’ is the new buzzword echoing in the halls of higher education today. The word conveys high and cherished ideals like independence, freedom, self-reliance, self-determination – all of which are now being invoked, by various authorities, inside and outside the government, to rationalise and justify the newfound urgency with which a select few colleges are being ‘invited’ to ‘apply’ for autonomy. Why then has this become controversial? For one, the University Grants Commission (UGC) in its ‘Guidelines for Autonomous Colleges During the XII Plan‘ (2012) had stipulated that only colleges that were awarded a least a B-Grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), three times, over at least ten years could be considered for autonomy. It had also stipulated that the staff of the college should be ‘involved in the thinking and planning processes from the very beginning’. None of this has happened, but ‘autonomy’ has now become a juggernaut, barrelling on, unstoppably. The ‘autonomy’ that is being planned will benefit only the various private trusts that now ‘manage’ the colleges in question – not the faculty, nor the non-teaching staff, nor the students, and certainly not their parents. The terms of autonomy are such that the administrative and financial powers and control of the private trusts will subsequently increase dramatically, de facto, and possibly de jure. The checks and balances that exist by virtue of being affiliated to the university will gradually disappear completely. For instance, faculty service conditions: these are supposed to remain unchanged but, in real terms, the obligation of the trusts to honour these conditions is greatly reduced ‘post-autonomously’. Why? Because the current financial and administrative accountability of the college trusts to the university authorities will disappear completely with ‘autonomy’, and consequently, so will employ