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Quality management education is going to be quite costly and a cause for concern for MBA aspirants from this year onwards with IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta and IIM Kozhikode hiking their fees considerably for their 2-year full-time flagship
programmes, and other institutions following in the same rein.

It all started with IIM Calcutta increasing its fee by Rs. 1.0 Lakh per year. IIM-C was charging Rs. 2 Lakh till now from its post-graduate students per year. But now students would have to shell out Rs. 3.0 Lakh and the fee will be further raised to Rs. 4 Lakh in 2009. So IIM Calcutta's 2-year post-graduate course will cost Rs. 7.0 Lakh Starting from the academic year 2008-09.

Similarly, IIM Bangalore has hiked its fees from Rs. 2.5 Lakh to Rs. 4.0 Lakh for the year 2008-09. Next year, the fee would be hiked to Rs. 5.0 Lakh. So a total of Rs. 9:0 Lakh would be charged for the 2-year course.

Following suit, IIM Ahmedabad has also announced a steep hike in its fees from this academic session. Students would now be required to pay Rs. 5.5 Lakh for the first year and Rs. 6.0 Lakh for the second year of the two year post graduate programme in management. That means a total of Rs. 11.5 Lakh for the 2-year course, compared to the earlier fee of Rs. 4.5 Lakh.

Taking a cue from its sister concerns in other cities, IIM Kozhikode has also decided to hike the fee to Rs. 3.0 Lakh for both first and second year for the batch joining in June 2008. While the institute was at present charging Rs. 1.90 Lakh and Rs. 1.95 Lakh for the first and second year respectively, fee structure would now be uniform for both.

To compensate for this move, IIM-C has also brought about a change in the need-based scholarship scheme. So far, students from house-holds with annual incomes of upto Rs. 2 Lakh were eligible for scholarships offered by the institute. From this year, the eligibility margin has been increased to Rs. 4 Lakh.

IIM-A has also tried to soften the blow by raising the income limit for giving financial support to students. Previously, only those students were considered for support whose family income was Rs. 2.0 Lakh. But now, that has been raised to Rs. 6.0 Lakh. IIM-A would also raise the amount for scholarships for students from lower income groups.

IIM-B board has also decided to increase the scholarship amount from Rs. 91 Lakh to Rs. 1.5 Crore for the year 2008-09. Currently, review is going on about the eligibility criteria for the scholarship.

Other three IIMs - IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore & IIM Kozhikode - are also expected to announce similar fee hikes later this year.

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* Contributed by -
CoolAvenues' Editorial Team