Engineering, Medical, Dental fees up this year

If students of undergraduate professional courses thought that the notified fee structure was complete, then they couldn’t be more wrong. It now transpires that they have to pay additional fees not included in the fee structure.

In effect, the total fees will be up by a few thousands.

According to sources in the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), students have to pay an additional amount ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 7,500.

“We have not included this additional fees,  to be paid at the colleges during the time of admissions. This includes university fee, library fee, alumni association fee, college fee and Common Entrance Test (CET) fee,” said a source.

According to officials, the additional fees will be Rs 3,090 for engineering, Rs 6,500 for medical and Rs 7,500 for dental courses.

CET FEES
	Last Year	This Year	Addl Fees
Medical	Rs. 46,000	Rs. 55,000	Rs. 6,500
Dental	Rs. 28,000	Rs. 35,000	Rs. 7,500
Engineering	Rs. 36,090	Rs. 45,000/50,000	Rs. 3,090

The state government last week issued a notification on the fee structure and seat sharing for undergraduate professional courses. This followed the signing of a consensual agreement with private professional college managements.

The notification fixed the annual CET fees at  Rs 45,000 and Rs 50,000 (two fee structures) for engineering, Rs 55,000 for medical and Rs 35,000 for dental courses. However, it did not mention the additional fees which students have to pay during admissions.

Apart from the additional fees, there are colleges which collect excess fees in the name of transportation, laboratory, placement etc. This varies between Rs 5,000 and Rs 50,000.

Fee Panel Report Not Made Public

The state government is yet to study the report submitted by the fee determination committee for individual colleges. The committee, headed by a retired high court judge, had submitted the report to the government two months ago. But without making it public, the government had signed the consensual agreement with private professional college managements.

According to sources, the fee fixed by the committee was based on the quality and facilities available in colleges and was very less for colleges providing poor quality education.

Higher Education Minister R V Deshpande refused to comment on the issue when reporters questioned him at the Bangalore University convocation on Saturday.