One of the top business schools in the country, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) announced a sizable fee hike on Tuesday for its Post Graduate Programmes (PGP) as well as for the executive courses.
The fee for IIMA's PGP and PGP-ABM (Agri Business Management) programmes will increase from the present Rs16.6 lakhs to Rs18.5 lakhs. The PGPX (executive) course fee is also being raised from Rs21.5 lakhs to Rs24.0 lakhs for the batch commencing from April 2015. The cumulative fee increase for all three programmes, of the order of about 11.5 per cent, equates to about 3.7 per cent annual increase over the three years.
"IIMA has not increased its fee for long duration programmes for two years. During these past two years, CPI inflation rate in India was 9.7 per cent in 2012 and 10.0 per cent in 2013; it is projected at 8.0 per cent for 2014," said IIMA director Ashish Nanda, adding that the institute has tried to cover increasing costs by focusing on efficiency, reducing cross-subsidisation of other programmes, support from executive education, increasing income from corpus, and intensifying fundraising. Nanda also clarified that as a consequence of fee restraint, IIMA PGP and PGPX fees are lower than those of some other comparable institutions.
He added, that even as IIMA reeling under increasing cost pressure, the institute was committed to providing education to all capable students, irrespective of their financial means. "IIMA disbursed financial aid of Rs7.55 crore to 295 students in 2012-13 and Rs6.94 cr. to 242 students in 2013-14, which represents a significantly broader and deeper commitment than do the financial aid programmes of comparable institutions," said the director.
The institute has introduced several innovations in its PGP and PGP-FABM programmes from 2015-17. The changes are introduction of three new core courses - "Government Systems & Processes," "Understanding Global Organisational Context," and "Having an Entrepreneurial Mind-set."
The institute is also introducing supernumerary seats for foreign nationals. IIMA will offer seats over its present capacity to foreign students who want to join the PGP course. "Our objective is to get quality foreign students to bring in diversity, and also to position the institute as a global learning destination for management students," said Ajay Pandey, dean programmes, IIMA.