Today in the afternoon, IIM Ahmedabad has announced a steep hike of 300 % in its fees from this academic session.
Now students will have to pay Rs 11.5 lakh for a two-year course, compared to the earlier fee of Rs 4.5 lakh though the institute has widened the option of getting scholarships for the students. Earlier the deadline of getting a scholarship for a student was 200K INR of family income, which has now been increased to 600K INR. The Central Govt. & the Gujrat Govt have vehemently opposed to this activity by the best B-School of the country. They stated it as a sense of irresponsibility of the authority of the IIM’s and also a sense of negligence and disrespect towards the common people who are not able to stand this tremendous hike. Even some days back when IIM Bangalore decided a fee hike of 75%, the Govt. had then also opposed this step.
According to some internal sources though, the IIM authority says since they are providing the best campus recruitment drives year after year that too with salaries as huge as 1crore p.a., which is quite easily comparable with any foreign top graded B-School, a fees like this is qute commendable. Moreover Bank loans are always available.
Now the question arising is that is this then a Business policy by the banks or a greater opening for the NRI students and students from well to do backgrounds? Is it a kind of reservation?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You have raised two questions.One, whether it is a strategy of the banks. And two, if this is a kind of unofficial reservation for the privileged few.
I am not sure if it is a banker’s ploy but given the floodgates of opportunities a berth in IIM opens to a stud, getting and repaying a bank loan is piece of cake.
Coming to your second question. I don’t think that finance is a deterrent in securing admission, with the banks more than ready to give away loans to the would be management gurus!
I would rather add something more. Cracking the CAT is tough and few get to the IIMs. For this students go through elaborate courses in tutorials which not everybody can afford. But then that is true not just for management entrance, but equally so for engineering and medical entrances as well. From this point of view, one may say that higher education is an opportunity available only to the financially solvent.