Citing the impact of COVID-19 on students and their families, the State government has decided that there will be no hike in engineering college fees for the current 2021-2022 academic year. But that does not mean that all students will incur no additional expenditure.
The government has allowed some engineering colleges to charge up to ₹20,000 as skill development fees. This is applicable to those colleges that have skill development laboratories. Skill fees will be categorised into three slabs, based on which managements can charge students ₹10,000, ₹15,000, or ₹20,000.
Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said a team from Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) will inspect colleges and categorise them based on the standard of training facilities and quality. Students will have to pay the skill development fees directly to the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA).
The decision to not hike fees was taken at a meeting convened on Wednesday by Dr. Narayan with representatives from the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges’ Association (KUPECA) and the Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minorities Professional Colleges’ Association (KRLMPCA).
While students and parents are relieved, it has come as a setback to private college managements who had been demanding that fees be increased by 30%.
A committee, headed by VTU Vice-Chancellor Karisiddappa, to look into this had recommended a hike of 15%-25%.
But in view of the COVID-19 situation, representatives of private colleges were convinced not to hike their fees, the Minister said in a release. Fee structures from the previous academic year will continue to be applicable this year. Last year, government quota students paid ₹65,360, while COMED-K students shelled out ₹1,43,748. However, in some other colleges, it was ₹58,806 for government quota students and ₹2,01,960 for COMED-K students.
While engineering colleges were allowed to charge only ₹20,000 as ‘miscellaneous fees’, many would increase the rates to as much as ₹70,000. To avoid this, the department this year has taken a decision that the fees should be paid to the KEA.
The colleges that charge extra fee should notify the purposes for which this is being collected and the information needs to be provided to KEA, the Department of Technical Education, and VTU and published on the website.
