Steep Fee Hike Contemplated at Indian B-schools
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Quality management education is
going to be quite costly and a cause for concern for MBA aspirants from this
year onwards with IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta and IIM Kozhikode
hiking their fees considerably for their 2-year full-time flagship
programmes, and other institutions following in the same rein.
It all started with IIM Calcutta
increasing its fee by Rs. 1.0 Lakh per year. IIM-C was charging Rs. 2 Lakh till
now from its post-graduate students per year. But now students would have to
shell out Rs. 3.0 Lakh and the fee will be further raised to Rs. 4 Lakh in 2009.
So IIM Calcutta's 2-year post-graduate course will cost Rs. 7.0 Lakh Starting
from the academic year 2008-09.
Similarly, IIM Bangalore has
hiked its fees from Rs. 2.5 Lakh to Rs. 4.0 Lakh for the year 2008-09. Next
year, the fee would be hiked to Rs. 5.0 Lakh. So a total of Rs. 9:0 Lakh would
be charged for the 2-year course.
Following suit, IIM Ahmedabad has
also announced a steep hike in its fees from this academic session. Students
would now be required to pay Rs. 5.5 Lakh for the first year and Rs. 6.0 Lakh
for the second year of the two year post graduate programme in management. That
means a total of Rs. 11.5 Lakh for the 2-year course, compared to the earlier
fee of Rs. 4.5 Lakh.
Taking a cue from its sister
concerns in other cities, IIM Kozhikode has also decided to hike the fee to Rs.
3.0 Lakh for both first and second year for the batch joining in June 2008.
While the institute was at present charging Rs. 1.90 Lakh and Rs. 1.95 Lakh for
the first and second year respectively, fee structure would now be uniform for
both.
To compensate for this move, IIM-C
has also brought about a change in the need-based scholarship scheme. So far,
students from house-holds with annual incomes of upto Rs. 2 Lakh were eligible
for scholarships offered by the institute. From this year, the eligibility
margin has been increased to Rs. 4 Lakh.
IIM-A has also tried to soften
the blow by raising the income limit for giving financial support to students.
Previously, only those students were considered for support whose family income
was Rs. 2.0 Lakh. But now, that has been raised to Rs. 6.0 Lakh. IIM-A would
also raise the amount for scholarships for students from lower income groups.
IIM-B board has also decided to
increase the scholarship amount from Rs. 91 Lakh to Rs. 1.5 Crore for the year
2008-09. Currently, review is going on about the eligibility criteria for the
scholarship.
Other three IIMs - IIM Lucknow,
IIM Indore & IIM Kozhikode - are also expected to announce similar fee hikes
later this year.
