IIM tag set to become more pricey this year

The coveted IIM tag is set to get more expensive from this year. At least nine Indian Institutes of Management, from top ones like Bangalore, Calcutta, Ahmedabad and Indore to their newer counterparts at Rohtak, Ranchi, Trichy, Udaipur and Amritsar, have either increased or are in the process of hiking fees by 5-17% for the 2018-20 batch, citing inflationary pressures and higher operational expenses, including faculty salaries and infrastructure costs. Depending upon the institute, students will pay Rs 80,000-2 lakh more for their MBAs. Fees at the IIMs for the two-year flagship postgraduate programme range from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 22 lakh after this year’s increase at IIM Ahmedabad.

Among IIMs increasing fee this year is IIM Bangalore, which will now charge Rs 21 lakh for its two-year programme, up from Rs 19.5 lakh last year. IIM Indore is going in for a Rs 2 lakh fee increase to Rs 16 lakh after two years, its director Rishikesha Krishnan told.

IIM Ahmedabad, which offers the most expensive programme among the IIMs, recently effected a hike for the third year running — to Rs 22 lakh from Rs 21 lakh. IIM Calcutta too has raised fees, by Rs 1lakh to Rs 21lakh for the upcoming session. According to IIM authorities, fee hikes have become par for the course as they try to keep pace with inflation, faculty pay hikes and the cost of infrastructure. “Increasing fees is now becoming a compulsion for older and mid-level IIMs such as us,” said IIM Rohtak director Dheeraj Sharma.

“After the first 10 years, IIMs are required to generate their own revenue and sustain themselves through their own corpus. Faculty salaries go up, cost of messes goes up, cost of hospitality, security, infrastructure, security goes up, thus necessitating a hike,” he said. Rohtak, which is nearing its 10-year period, has raised its fees by around 7% this year.

Set up in the same year as Rohtak, IIM Ranchi has hiked fees from Rs12.5 lakh to Rs 14 lakh, said its director Shailendra Singh.

At IIM Trichy, fees have gone up from Rs 12 lakh to Rs 14 lakh. “IIMs have consistently been focusing on providing better quality education, many have international accreditations. Factoring in that, plus increasing costs, fees are bound to go up,” said IIM Trichy director B Metri. “Average salary packages for the students are also going up and the payback period is quite reasonable.”

Other new IIMs have also jumped on to the fee-hike bandwagon. This includes IIM Udaipur, which has increased its total fees by Rs 80,000 to Rs 14 lakh. The institute says the reason behind this revision is the central pay commission award and the goods and services tax (GST). Sources at IIM Amritsar said it is also contemplating raising its existing fees to Rs 10.5 lakh from the current Rs 9 lakh.

Experts feel this trend of increasing fees more frequently than before is here to stay. “The market is determining prices. Salaries have improved so much and there is a sizeable demand for good management talent,” said Narayanan Ramaswamy, partner and head, education and skill development, KPMG India.