Students' Corner

Dear Students,
 
LAST WEEK WE ASKED: Do you think B-schools should hike fees in these tough times?

BEST RESPONSE

Fee hikes depend on three factors like affordability of students, inflation and cost for delivering a quality program. Many B-Schools in the country have either already hiked or proposed a hike in their current fee structure so as to meet their rising operational costs. High inflation, higher administrative prices and the rising salary of faculty members  are the driving forces for fees hike. For a premium well established B-school, students doesn't mind to pay more but for relatively new institutes fees hike play an crucial role. Difference between value offered and cost incurred should be accounted for fees hike.

- Saumay Gupta, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Gandhinagar.

 

OTHER RESPONSES

Due to rapidly increasing inflation, B schools tend to increase the fees. But just inflation is not the only matter, increasing pay scale of faculties is also a reason. Increasing fees hike by some reputed B schools, force brilliant students with good score in competitive exam to probably let go one of their choice. Educational loans, scholarships do work. On other hand, B schools providing good placements is also one of the major reason for their fees hike. But then fees hike should be at a lower pace allowing students to opt for the one which they are looking for.

- Dimpy Tolani Kamalkumar, Amrut Mody School Of Management (AMSoM), Ahmedabad University.

The hike in B school fees comes in a time when every aspect of livelihood is reeling under inflation; particularly education sector which has to cope up with the operational costs so that the ambiance of MBA is not compromised. But B schools should maintain their status quo as far as return on investment is concerned. In addition to that scholarship should be provided to the needy students.

- Dipika Sahoo, College of Engineering & Technology, Bhubaneswar.

This is the time when most of the B-schools are trying to sustain in the competition. In this turbulent industry growth, most of the B-schools are struggling for placements statistics and fees hike will certainly not motivate the M.B.A. aspirants to get admission in the B-schools. Aspirants will try to get continue their job and wait for another year. Aspirants are also keeping eye on the placements statistics and B-schools are also trying to attract the best talents and hike in the fees will certainly ring the alarm in the aspirants.

- Anand Trivedi, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Gandhinagar.

Most of the B-schools in India like IIMs and XLRI are already charging between thirteen to fifteen lakh rupees for the two year course and hike in this fee structure will be excruciatingly painful for the students. There are many candidates who even  cannot  afford the earlier fee structure and hence are seeking other options so I believe that these B schools should bring some changes in their fee structure like a fee deduction should be given according to the family income of the candidates. They should  tie up the companies to provide scholarships to the students.

- Piyush, PEC University, Chandigarh.

As per current economical scenario there is a need of fee hike to meet the expenses of infrastructure, operations and highly paid professors in B-schools. But there are ways to mitigate such financial problem using different alternatives like IIM-A has recently employed that all students placed in earlier batch will give negligible amount from their huge chunk of salary every month.  It will contribute to a good cause for education system as well and help the future batch to prevent from fee hike. Even pursuing students can introduce heterogeneous solutions to reduce cost of current system to prevent fee hike.

- Pratik Patel, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Gandhinagar.

This is a sad news indeed and fee hike by Govt insititutions will spur private institutions to raise fees. Improvement in quality of teaching and induction of industry experts should be the areas of focus. Besides, many business schools need better infrastructures such as good hostel, canteen and library. Monopoly of present day faculty members most of whom have never been in an industry and relaxing norms to attract industry experts for teaching must be followed. An increase in the fees should go hand in hand with some new developments.

- Ambarish Nigam, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Gandhinagar.

There can be no concrete answer to this question because this is a totally situational issue. Coming to the point based on costing concept of finance ,higher fixed cost leads to increase in expenses so higher the number of students lesser is the per head fee. From a macro viewpoint students want return on investment in terms of a good career so if the course curriculum and quality of education is good than students will not hesitate to come and study no matter whatever amount they have to pay.

- Rajan Sudhir Jamdar, ICFAI Business School Ahmedabad.

Increased operational costs have made many B-schools to take the decision to pass on the increased cost to students. The increased fee will make it more difficult for needy students to get admission as most of the students take education loan. For students, it will be like walking on a double edged sword. At one end they will have to bear the increased cost due to fee hike and at other they will have to struggle to get good placements, as they will have to repay the loan amount, which is tough in the current economic scenario. Thus it will not be rational to hike fees as it will only deter the deserving students from getting admissions.

- Kanchan Agrawal, IMNU, Ahmedabad.

According to fee hikes including those under consideration come at a time MBA's popularity seems to have waned somewhat. Nonetheless, most B-schools say these hikes simply couldn't be put off given inflation, higher administrative expenses and the rising salary of faculties. If leading institutes feel that given their costs and the value they offer there is still to increase the fee, they can go ahead and do it, The move may affect the choice of institute for some students, though availability of educational loans will mitigate the impact a fee hike is hardly a deterrent.

- Rupesh Rathore, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun.

With the number of CAT applicants plummeting to a seven year low this year, B schools have taken a decision to hike fees by upto 19 per cent. Citing inflation, capex and other capital expenditure the price hike is vindicated. But from the point of view of applicants there should be value for money they are investing and hence they won't mind paying more for a well-established premier B-school. But for the case of newly established ones the move will impact the decision of students considering the return over investment on their education loan.

- Rakshit Maheshwari, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Gandhinagar.

Indian B-School facing sparingly tough time with respect of education standard, placements and constant demand of the high standard of students by industries; all these keep the college in their toes, to discover the good proportion in these measures. In management, we found that every additional thing has an additional cost, so they should work out right balance rather than to hike fees. Every B-School turns on to down play the overall monetary value. Workplace on the courses available to study should lie with industries demand in coming future. 

- Amit Kumar, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Gandhinagar.

In tough times like these, it's difficult for B-schools to justify a hike in their fee structure. However, there is no harm in going ahead with the initiative until and unless it is backed up with some value addition which may be perceived by the students. Students look for returns on their invested fees, in the form of good placements. Though it'd be difficult for B-schools to reflect better placements in such short notice, they may however, get tie-ups with global institutes and bring in some live projects to work upon. Thus, promising better placements in the future times.

- Mayank Tripathi, Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad.

Any hike in fees by B-schools in the present scenario will lead to detrimental impact on the strength of admission seekers. As already, situation is bleak due to the fact that returns are quite nominal compared to investment involved in post graduation with few exceptions. Moreover, deteriorating value of rupee along with inflationary trends in the recent past has encumbered students in pursuing higher education. Considering these aspects, B-schools should avoid passing the burden directly to students rather, if urgent, could opt for a marginal increase in current year and wait till the situation saturates before going for complete hike.

- Shivam Chhabra, Integral University, Lucknow.

To cope up with such a mounting inflation B-schools want to hike fee but it should be justified by best of best placement which seem inconvenient to students because of tough economic scenario. Declining number of students in B-schools is direct consequence of fee hike and poor placement scenario. In India there are so many talented students who deserve to study but can't afford due to economic problem of their family. Somehow they manage money to study from any sources but, if fee hike goes on then it would be just a dream to study in B-schools.

- Sumit Sourav, Regional College of Management , Bhubaneswar.

It's not just the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) which are likely to hike their tuition fees, other topline business schools in the country are also planning to revise their tuition fees. Most of the B-schools have attributed the proposed hike to the rising salary levels of faculty members, higher administrative expenses and inflation. Most students appearing for CAT, XAT and other entrance exams this year, however, have to wait for some time to know the exact hike. B-schools usually specify the exact tuition fees in their offer letters, which they send to students.

- Naveen Patwary, ICSI, Kolkata.

An agrarian economy such as India does not value the importance of education. Increase in the fees of B- school will directly trigger increase in the education loan amount which shall repel students from management studies. The looming world economy has deeply jolted the sensitive middle- class families and concurrent increase the education fees will surely arrest our academic growth. Our developing country needs skilled managers in order to regulate the burgeoning private and public sector which contribute to the vertical and horizontal development of our country.

- Shiti N. Batham, IIPM, New Delhi.

Your responses should reach us at edu@business-standard.com by Monday evening every week. Please ensure that your responses do not exceed 100 words. Avoid attachments and email your full name, institute's name, batch and complete mailing address. The student who gives the 'Best Response' will be awarded Rs 500.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do you think manifestos of political parties have been elaborate enough on issues like education and employment?