10% fee hike to pinch engineering students

Ahna Prakash | NT Bengaluru:

The Karnataka government is planning to increase the fees of engineering colleges by 10 percent for this academic year. This decision has made many students hesitant about being admitted to engineering colleges. “Engineering is already costly. My parents had to arrange a huge amount of money for me. But now, arranging more than Rs 15,000 is a burden. If my parents can arrange the amount, I will be doing engineering, but then again, if they think that it is too much and can’t afford it, then I will have to think about other options,” said Soumya, a student at Florence PU college. “If I can’t afford the fee for engineering, I will probably do BSc as my parents are very conservative. It took me a while to convince them for an engineering course. They don’t want to spend a lot of money on a girl’s education,” she said in a disappointing tone.

Another student, Haripriya, from MES PU College, said, “I will have to apply for an education loan if I want to study. It’s difficult getting into a government college. So, I am hopeful that I will get admission to a good private college. My only concern is that I will have to take a loan.”

Higher Education Minister Ashwath Narayan is planning to meet the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering College Association (KUPECA) this week. Representatives from private engineering colleges say there is a need to revise the fee structure, and the last fee revision for engineering colleges was five years ago.

“Engineering courses require a lot of resources, like computer labs and research labs. The 10 per cent increase is still not enough. The government and private colleges should reach a consensus, and fee revision should be done every year. This was going to happen the previous year, but due to the ongoing pandemic and the economic crisis, this decision was put on hold. But now we are planning to increase the fee for this academic year,” said Prema David, admission officer of Dayananda Sagar Institute.

A 10 per cent increase in the fee for the engineering courses under the KCET quota will push the fee from Rs 65,360 to Rs 71,896. For the COMEDK quota, the fee will go up to Rs 1,58,118. This decision will impact students applying to engineering colleges this academic year. Educationists stress that this might lead to a decline in enrolment in private engineering colleges.