The strength of this philanthropic model is that it costs so little to change so many lives. In 2008, Dakshana’s total cost per scholar was $3,913, and 34 percent of its students won places at IIT. By 2016, Dakshana had become so efficient that its cost per student had dropped to $2,649, and its success rate hit an astonishing 85 percent. Even better, the government heavily subsidizes both the boarding schools and IIT: Pabrai figures that for every dollar Dakshana spends on a student, the government spends more than $1,000. So he’s effectively making a leveraged bet with an enormous social
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