IIM brand spells high value for money

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: Although the government wants to clamp down on fee-hike for premier institutions like Indian Institutions of Management (IIMs), corporate houses, academicians, and students are of the opinion that a fee-hike will not adversely affect students. As the IIMs are a powerful brand like the IITs, they are value for money. Also, the IIMs have to find resources for 27% OBC reservations like other central institutions.

Meanwhile, crucially, the prestigious two-year, post-graduate programme of the IIMs has in the past few weeks seen a staggering fee-hike that affects students the most. They have to appear for the rigourous common admission test (CAT) to get into the IIMs, which has been termed by the former IIM-A director, Bakul Dholakia, as the “toughest” management examination in the world.

The tripling of fee for instance, by Indian Institutes of Management (IIM-A), many believe that it would make it an elitist institution accessible only to the rich leading to a widening divide between the classes. IIM Ahmedabad increased the fee from Rs 5 lakh for both the years of the course to Rs 11.5 lakh, while IIM Bangalore had decided to increase the fee to Rs 9 lakh from Rs 5 lakh. IIM-Lucknow has raised its fees from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh.

IIM Kolkata has, similarly decided to increase the fee to Rs 6 lakh for the entire course from Rs 3.75 lakh at present and IIM Kozhikode decided to increase the fee to Rs 6 lakh for the two-year programme from Rs 3.85 lakh while IIM Indore increase the PGP fees by Rs 1.20 lakh for the new academic session—for PGP, the fees for the first year shall be Rs 3 lakh and Rs 3.1 lakh shall be the fees for the second year. The fee for PGP 2007 batch at IIM-I is Rs 1.90 per year.

Endorsing the fee-hike, executive director, KPMG, Sangeeta Singh, says, “Quality education needs high quality investment in terms of faculty both in terms of number and quality, research and project funding, infrastructure for IT--software and hardware, building, library, guest faculty, interaction with corporate houses, all of which needs funding. As long as IIMs are able to maintain high standards they will be able to justify he fees.” Commenting on reservations, she adds: “Reservation at the highest levels of education erodes merit and is reverse discrimination.”