Fee hiked for all professional courses

Hyderabad, June 27: The rising inflation has resulted in considerable hike in the fee of all the professional courses offered in the State and students will have to pay an additional fee ranging from Rs. 2,700 to Rs. 8,200 depending on the category of seats. Engineering and pharmacy aspirants seeking seat under the Convenor quota have to pay Rs. 2,700 additionally with the fee decided at Rs. 30,200. Under the management quota candidates need to pay Rs. 91,700 due to the increase in fee by Rs. 8,200. For MBA and MCA, the fee for the Convenor quota is Rs. 26,700, an increase of Rs. 2,400 while in the management quota the hike is Rs. 6,500 with the fee being Rs. 73,100.
“The hike has been calculated based on the average inflation rate of last eight weeks, which has come to 9.82 percent,” M.D. Christopher, Secretary of A.P. State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) told the reporters here on Friday after the meeting of Admission and Fee Regulation Committee (AFRC). He said the fee charged for NBA accredited courses has also been increased from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 3,000 from this academic year. The hike would be applicable to all the minority and non-minority unaided colleges.
He, however, said that the decision on the hike for seats in the Government colleges would be taken later and not on the inflation rate.
The total burden put on the students with the hike is expected to be around Rs. 75 crore per year based on the existing seats and it is likely to be increased with new colleges coming up this year. As per last year records, there are 1,16,819 seats in 325 private engineering colleges, 13,357 seats in 225 private Pharmacy colleges, 25,818 seats in 360 private MBA colleges and 33,910 seats in 496 private MCA colleges.