Revision as of 15:29, 27 October 2016

2016: Fees rise, scholarships ebb

The Times of India, May 27 2016

PGBDM fees, 2017 and 2018, institute-wise; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, May 27 2016

Hemali Chhapia

Inputs from Ashish Chauhan (Ahmedabad), Pavan M V (Bengaluru), Somdutta Basu (Kolkata), Prashanth (Kozhikode), Yudhvir Rana (Punjab) and Isha Jain (Lucknow)

Becoming an MBA gets tougher as fees rise, scholarships ebb

In a double whammy for management students, fees of the top schools have risen significantly even as scholarship disbursal on the campuses has slipped.

The Indian School of Business (ISB) is the latest to raise its fee for an MBA degree to Rs 24 lakh. Its move followed the IIMs', which cit ed rising costs and shrinking government funds to up their sticker rate. The increases come even as almost one in every three freshmen is unable to pay the fees and needs loans or scholarships, said a faculty member.

In 2009-10, IIM-Ahmedabad handed out fee waivers amounting to Rs 8.3 crore on the basis of annual family income. That has halved. Last year, 239 students got schol arships and the college handed out Rs 4.8 crore. For 2016-17, financial aid is being offered to 251 PGP and PGPFABM students, 29% of the total student strength.

At IIM-Bangalore, 45 students of the 414 in the 2015-17 batch were granted financial aid. Eight got 100% tuition fee waiver for the full course of two years The Indian School of Business (ISB) on Thursday defended its fee hike, but offered a sweetener. There will be an increase in the number of scholarships at the institute. Currently 10% of the class gets aid; for the incoming batch of 2017, 15% will get scholarships. “While we had a marginal increase last year, this is the first significant fee hike in the last four years. We feel it is time for a correction,“ said Prof Dishan Kamdar, deputy dean (academic programmes), ISB.

“Increasing fees is not a sustainable way to build corpus and meet the demands of the future,“ said former IIMKozhikode director Debashis Chatterjee, who is now a tenured professor of Human Resources Management at IIMLucknow. “At the same time, there is no denying the fact that costs are increasing and capital expenses are huge.But institutes must devise innovate ways to raise money.“

What is evident is that scholarships are taking a hit at most top schools. IIM-Indore awarded need-based scholarships worth Rs 162.9 scholarships worth Rs 162.9 lakh to 53 candidates in 201213. It dropped to Rs 114.1 lakh in 2014-15 to 42 students.

IIM-C has raised its fees by over 17%. “IIM-C had no option over 17%. “IIM-C had no option but to go for a steep hike. We have had to increase salaries of professors. We have had to take into account the basic inflation. Maintenance cost has gone up, the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations have to be implemented, the cost of academic licences and software has also increased.All these prompted the BoG to hike the course fee considerably, even more than the proposed amount,“ said an official.

Help has come, unexpectedly , from the government in 2016. IIM-A claimed it had set aside Rs 6 crore for scholarships, but handed out aid worth Rs 4.8 crore as 22 students withdrew and availed the need-based scholarship for SCST students given out by the Centre, said a statement.