No fee revision at IIMs this year

No fee revision at IIMs this year

Shivangi.Mishra@timesgroup.com

29.06.2020

Owing to the COVID crisis, most IIMs may not revise the course fee for the MBA programmes, this year. Each year, the IIMs enhanced the annual fee for students, which will not be done in academic session 2020.

“Every year there is a relative increase of 2-3% in fee but IIM Ahmedabad will not revise the fee for the upcoming batches due to the ongoing situation,” said an institute spokesperson. While IIMs may not increase the fee, but many are reluctant to offer fee waiver that several students are demanding. Janat Shah, director, IIM Udaipur, says, “the classes for the one-year programme have already resumed online in May. Fee waiver is not possible as institutes are bearing the operational costs of the campuses." Students will soon return to the campuses as soon as they receive MHRD guidelines for the same, he adds.

Himanshu Rai, director, IIM Indore, agrees that the operational cost of the campuses has not reduced due to the lockdown. “The primary costs incurred are the payments to faculty and staff members. To prepare for a seamless online education, institutes have also invested a good sum in building sound IT infrastructure from buying webcams, or online proctoring software for remote assessments to opting for Learning Management Systems (LMS). So, fee waivers are not justified,” he adds.