In India's beleaguered higher-education system, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) stand apart. The seven institutions have turned out some of the world's finest engineers and computer scientists, eagerly recruited by top graduate schools in the United States. Many of the institutes' graduates have gone on to become the chief executives of American companies or have fueled India's information-technology boom. But their international status may soon be threatened. In what many educators are calling an ill-conceived and poorly executed plan, the Indian government is doubling the number of institutes across the country. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that by expanding the elite network, India can retain more of its brightest students to help promote future economic growth. But a host of problems have plagued the rollout. The government pushed through the creation of six new IIT's so quickly that they all have students but no faculty members or permanent facilities. Few directors have been appointed, nor has construction begun on any of the campuses. Instead, the older institutes are expected to absorb the new students by adding additional courses, or, in some cases, sending their professors to teach at temporary sites far away. That has placed enormous strains on the institutes, which, like many other colleges in India, already face faculty shortages of 20 percent to 30 percent. A bright spot is that the expansion offers more job possibilities for Indian-born academics who want to return home.