 "IIM-A announces 11.44% fee hike, highest in last 5 years")
Citing inflationary pressures, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has announced a fee hike of 11.44 per cent for its postgraduate programme in management (PGP) and the PGP food and agri-business management (FABM) for the 2015-17 batch. The fee hike will be the steepest in last five years.
The institute has announced the fee for its PGP and PGP-ABM programs will increase from the current Rs 16.6 lakh to Rs 18.5 lakh. The PGPX course fee is being raised from Rs 21.5 lakh to Rs 24 lakh for the batch commencing from April 2015.
According to IIM-A, since the earlier revision made for the 2013-15 batch, inflation has been on the rise and is projected at eight per cent for 2014.
The CPI inflation rate in India was 9.7 per cent in 2012 and 10 per cent in 2013.
“One of the other reasons we are hiking the fee is to remain financially autonomous. We believe those students who go on to grow in their career after studying here should be the ones bearing the cost of IIM-A education, as opposed to the tax payers,” said Ashish Nanda, director of IIM-A.
“Deferred admissions will encourage some of our bright admits, fresh out of college, to gain relevant work experience before joining the program so that they can benefit from, and contribute to, the PGP program even more than they would have otherwise,” said Nanda.
The institute is also to offer seats over its present capacity to foreign students who want to join the PGP course. “Our objective is to get quality foreign students to bring in diversity, and also to position the institute as a global learning destination for management students,” said Ajay Pandey, dean (programs).
The institute is mulling the rationalisation of GMAT cut-off to attract more foreign nationals.
“However, we will make sure the quality (of foreign nationals) is comparable to what is demanded of domestic candidates in the admission process,” Nanda added.
The institute is also mulling following the ministry of human resource development’s Direct Admissions of Students Abroad (DASA) scheme, which calls for setting aside additional seats for foreign nationals, equivalent to 10 per cent of the regular batch size. Both PGP and PGP-FABM put together, the current total batch size for both first and second year is roughly 860.
For the PGP and PGP-ABM programs, the tuition fee increase is 10 per cent, whereas administrative costs (for hostel, facilities, academic support, etc) have increased at a higher pace owing to inflation, resulting in a net increase of 11.44 per cent. The cumulative fee increase for all three programs, of the order of about 11.5 per cent, equates to about 3.7 per cent annual increase over the three years, the institute informed.
“Even as the institute raises its fees, we emphasise our commitment to providing generous financial aid and working intensively with financial institutions to make educational loans easily available, so as to ensure that capable students continue to be able to join IIMA irrespective of their financial means. We have tried to cover increasing costs by focusing on efficiency, reducing cross-subsidisation of other programs, support from executive education, increasing income from corpus, and intensifying fund-raising,” said Nanda.
Amidst increasing cost pressure, the institute has continued extending financial support to students. IIM-A disbursed financial aid of Rs 7.55 crore to 295 students in 2012-13 and Rs 6.94 crore to 242 students in 2013-14. IIM-A has also worked intensively with financial institutions such that currently several banks are offering incoming students loans covering all educational cost.
Meanwhile, Nanda stated certain changes are being made in PGP and other programs. For instance, as per PGP review committee’s recommendations, the incoming batch of PGP 2015-17 will see introduction of new core courses like government systems and processes, understanding global organisational context, having an entrepreneurial mind-set, and experiencing integration, apart from allowing flexibility for students to specialise in specific domains (such as marketing, finance, and HR) on their meeting specified credit requirements in those domains.
On the other hand, as per the recommendations of the PGP agri-business management (ABM) review committee, the program is being restructured and renamed as post graduate programme in food and agribusiness management (PGP-FABM) even as it is being opened up to non-agriculture background students to bring in more diversity in terms of academic backgrounds.
The institute has announced the fee for its PGP and PGP-ABM programs will increase from the current Rs 16.6 lakh to Rs 18.5 lakh. The PGPX course fee is being raised from Rs 21.5 lakh to Rs 24 lakh for the batch commencing from April 2015.
According to IIM-A, since the earlier revision made for the 2013-15 batch, inflation has been on the rise and is projected at eight per cent for 2014.
The CPI inflation rate in India was 9.7 per cent in 2012 and 10 per cent in 2013.
“One of the other reasons we are hiking the fee is to remain financially autonomous. We believe those students who go on to grow in their career after studying here should be the ones bearing the cost of IIM-A education, as opposed to the tax payers,” said Ashish Nanda, director of IIM-A.
“Deferred admissions will encourage some of our bright admits, fresh out of college, to gain relevant work experience before joining the program so that they can benefit from, and contribute to, the PGP program even more than they would have otherwise,” said Nanda.
The institute is also to offer seats over its present capacity to foreign students who want to join the PGP course. “Our objective is to get quality foreign students to bring in diversity, and also to position the institute as a global learning destination for management students,” said Ajay Pandey, dean (programs).
The institute is mulling the rationalisation of GMAT cut-off to attract more foreign nationals.
“However, we will make sure the quality (of foreign nationals) is comparable to what is demanded of domestic candidates in the admission process,” Nanda added.
The institute is also mulling following the ministry of human resource development’s Direct Admissions of Students Abroad (DASA) scheme, which calls for setting aside additional seats for foreign nationals, equivalent to 10 per cent of the regular batch size. Both PGP and PGP-FABM put together, the current total batch size for both first and second year is roughly 860.
For the PGP and PGP-ABM programs, the tuition fee increase is 10 per cent, whereas administrative costs (for hostel, facilities, academic support, etc) have increased at a higher pace owing to inflation, resulting in a net increase of 11.44 per cent. The cumulative fee increase for all three programs, of the order of about 11.5 per cent, equates to about 3.7 per cent annual increase over the three years, the institute informed.
“Even as the institute raises its fees, we emphasise our commitment to providing generous financial aid and working intensively with financial institutions to make educational loans easily available, so as to ensure that capable students continue to be able to join IIMA irrespective of their financial means. We have tried to cover increasing costs by focusing on efficiency, reducing cross-subsidisation of other programs, support from executive education, increasing income from corpus, and intensifying fund-raising,” said Nanda.
Amidst increasing cost pressure, the institute has continued extending financial support to students. IIM-A disbursed financial aid of Rs 7.55 crore to 295 students in 2012-13 and Rs 6.94 crore to 242 students in 2013-14. IIM-A has also worked intensively with financial institutions such that currently several banks are offering incoming students loans covering all educational cost.
Meanwhile, Nanda stated certain changes are being made in PGP and other programs. For instance, as per PGP review committee’s recommendations, the incoming batch of PGP 2015-17 will see introduction of new core courses like government systems and processes, understanding global organisational context, having an entrepreneurial mind-set, and experiencing integration, apart from allowing flexibility for students to specialise in specific domains (such as marketing, finance, and HR) on their meeting specified credit requirements in those domains.
On the other hand, as per the recommendations of the PGP agri-business management (ABM) review committee, the program is being restructured and renamed as post graduate programme in food and agribusiness management (PGP-FABM) even as it is being opened up to non-agriculture background students to bring in more diversity in terms of academic backgrounds.