When worldwide, universities are transitioning to become engines of economic growth, the self-created domestic disaster of India's education system going into a free-fall in terms of academic standards and the irrelevance of the education it provides has been India's biggest bottleneck in realizing its economic growth potential. In terms of knowledge creation, scientific discoveries, technological inventions, and even in imparting education at all levels, there has been a rapid decline in quality in the past two decades, leaving the country with an acute shortage of employable, university educated knowledge workers. Skill gaps are alarmingly high where higher-order skills are needed. Skill shortages in most industries continue to plague the growth of the Indian economy. Given these ground realities, rather than becoming the world's third largest economy by 2030, it is likely that India's economy will head towards a meltdown by then.