IIM Ends Fee Socialism

IIM Ends Fee Socialism

The IIM Calcutta has increased the fees from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 13.5 lakh for its two-year postgraduate diploma programme
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta has increased the fees for the two-year postgraduate diploma programme to Rs 13.5 lakh from Rs 9 lakh, citing “excellent placements” and finally acknowledging that money does matter.

The revision — the steepest hike among the “ABC” IIMs this year largely because of Calcutta’s penchant to stay on the lower side till now — makes the figure comparable to those of the institutes in Ahmedabad and Bangalore.

“The decision to raise the fees was taken after considering the fact that we have had excellent placements this year. And we need more funds…. So, the hike is justified,” said Ajit Balakrishnan, the chairman of the board of governors of IIM Calcutta.

The new fee will come into effect for students taking admission from this academic session, due to start in another two months. The decision was taken at a board meeting held today before the institute’s annual convocation.

IIM Calcutta authorities had earlier announced that the institute would not raise fees this year following a Rs 2-lakh increase last year.

The institute, which had refrained from big hikes claiming that fees were not “make or break” for an institute, today conceded that it needed more money. “Earlier, we used to believe that fees are not the benchmark for academic quality but things have changed. We need more money for infrastructure development and research. Moreover, we can give more scholarships with this money,” Balakrishnan said.

For the past three years, the top three business schools in the country had not received any grant from the Centre except for the allowance for infrastructure augmentation to implement the OBC reservation.

“We are adding over 5 lakh sqft to accommodate more students and create more facilities. We also want to focus more on research. The increased fees will help us turn IIM Calcutta into a world-class institute,” a faculty member said.

The fees at the three IIMs are still around one-fourth of those charged by top B-schools in the US and Europe, the faculty member said.

The fee hike will enable IIM Calcutta to generate surplus funds for long-term development. The institute is estimated to spend around Rs 10 lakh on each student.

Although IIM Calcutta had planned to admit around 464 students this year to implement the OBC quota, lack of infrastructure has forced the authorities to restrict the number to 375.

Source Link: http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2010_04_05_IIM_Ends_Fee_Socialism.html