Students opt private colleges over new govt. colleges

A perusal of the seats allotment data during the ongoing single window counselling for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA 2009) show that over the past couple of days high scoring candidates have preferred to join leading self-financing engineering colleges although seats are available in the new Anna University colleges. While last year the government had set up six colleges, this year it started five colleges.

An analysis of the admission data revealed that the Chennai Anna University's established departments such as the College of Engineering in Guindy, Madras Institute of Technology and A C College of Technology are the top favourites of aspirants followed by PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Government College of Technology (Coimbatore) and the Thiagarajar College of Engineering.

After the seats in the Open Competition and Backward Community categories in these government and aided institutions were filled, the students have moved over to self-financing colleges like SSN College of Engineering, Velammal Engineering College, RMK Engineering College, St Joseph's College of Engineering, Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering College, Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, the Panimalar Engineering College, and the Sri Sairam Engineering College.

Consequently, seats in the 11 newly established constituent colleges of the Anna University in Villupuram, Tindivanam, Arni, Ariyalur, Ramanthapuram, Thirukkuvalai, Panruti, Pattukkottai, Dindigul, Nagercoil and Thoothukudi, both last year and this year, are up for grabs.

One of the reasons cited by students for this trend is that the new university colleges do not have adequate infrastructure and are functioning out of temporary premises. Therefore, they are willing to pay Rs 40,000 as annual fees in private colleges although studying in the university college would cost them just Rs 15,000 per annum.

Anna University (Chennai) vice chancellor P Mannar Jawahar acknowledges that this is the trend during the single window counselling. "Traditionally certain government engineering colleges like the one in Bargur and Vellore are preferred by students hailing from economically weaker sections. The new university colleges are in rural areas, therefore students from Chennai may opt for self-financing colleges in and around the city," he explained.