Fee hike clips engineering students dreams

Updated on: Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Tuition fees in engineering colleges are soaring through the roof, forcing more students to rely on loans.

Data submitted by students to the Directorate of Technical Education shows that close to 50% or over 65,000 of those who joined engineering institutes come from homes where the annual family income is less than Rs 1 lakh. Most of these are middle class Maharashtrians from urban pockets of the state, all aspiring to join a professional college.

The rising cost, say college principals, pushes many candidates to either resort to loans or give up their dreams of a higher education.

Picture this: in 2006, it was the cheapest to study at the Matsyodari Shikshan Sanstha’s College of Engineering in Aurangabad; its yearly fee was Rs 18,170. Today its annual fee is close to Rs 50,000 per student. Six years ago, the Sinhagad Institute of Technology, Pune, charged the most—Rs 59,000; today it is Rs 92,000.

Tuition inflation has to be contained, said Vaibhav Narwade, IT head of department of Vasant Dada Patil College of Engineering. “Not all of it is justified,” said experts.

Fee body must be given more bite

Education experts say it’s time to rein in tuition expenses. Not all engineering colleges have the cutting-edge labs they boast of, neither are their libraries as well-stocked as shown on paper. All the more reason to provide more teeth and a larger staff to the Shikshan Shulka Samiti, the body that decides the fees to be charged based on the accounts submitted by colleges. “The Samiti should physically inspect the professional colleges; there are bold claims made on the balance sheet’s asset side that are far from reality,” said a principal of a government college.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, director of the College of Engineering, Pune, said that he wasn’t sure about the veracity of the income information given by students. “But yes, there are several candidates whose family income is less than Rs 30,000 or Rs 40,000. I feel that loans must be made easily available to our youth. They should not drop out of the system for want of finance.”

Most parents feel that there hasn’t been enough external pressure from the government to curb tuition fees. “Loans will only offload the costs on students and their families. There was a time when an Indian student did not need to take a loan for an education,” said Dr Vivek Korde, president of Forum Against the Commercialisation of Education.

With so many politicians running professional colleges, parents can only wonder who will bell the fee fat cats.

Fee hike clips engineering students dreams

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