IIM Bangalore, Lucknow and Rohtak hiked fee for MBA program; parity of fees among top 3 IIMs 

Indian Institute of Bangalore, Lucknow, and Rohtak has increased the fee for their flagship MBA program. The institutes now join the league of IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta which charge nearly INR 23 lakh for an MBA program.

IIM Bangalore which earlier used to charge INR 21 lakh, has raised the fee to INR 23 lakh, which is at par to the two top high charging IIM institutes - IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta.

Likewise, IIM Lucknow has increased MBA fees with a whopping amount of INR 5 lakh, which makes the fees nearly INR 19 lakh for the two-year program. According to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), IIM Lucknow is ranked at number four among the country's B-schools.

Named among the newer IIMs, IIM Rohtak has also joined the race and has raised the fees from INR 13.8 lakh to INR 15.2 lakh for MBA 2020-22 batch.

IIM Kozhikode is also expected to take a similar step but hasn't declared it so far. Currently, the institute is among the top 5 B-schools and charges INR 19 lakhs for the MBA program.

As per reports, IIM Bangalore and Lucknow have taken the fee rising move, as the fee remained unchanged in the last couple of years.IIM Bangalore Director, Professor G. Raghuram said, "The fee increase for the 2020-22 batch was decided in late 2019. Earlier the fee was increased to INR 21 lakhs for 2018-20 batch. With more than 10% increase, the fee for the incoming batch is INR 23 lakhs."

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Asserting about the large amount, Raghuram further added that IIM Bangalore follows a philosophy that no students should be denied education for want of funds, and hence the institute provides scholarships and financial assistance to the needy students.

Despite the non-increment of fees in the last few years, IIM-B also took this move as the average annual salaries and other operating costs have increased.

Raghuram said, "The fee increase is primarily driven by the fact that the average annual salary increases are 5% (amounting to over 10% in 2 years) and other operating cost increases are 8% (amounting to over 16% in 2 years). These costs are mostly fixed in nature."

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A similar response was received by IIM Lucknow. Chairperson, corporate communications and media relations at IIM Lucknow, Vikas Srivastava said, "It is to be noted that IIM Lucknow rolled back its fee in 2013 by 10% from 12 lakh to 10.8 lakh. It was only in the 2016 batch that the fee was brought back to 2013 levels i.e. 14 lakhs. Since 2016, there has been no fee hike and thus the decision to hike fee was taken in June 2019. "

Srivastava also stated that even after fee hike, IIM Lucknow has the lowest fee amongst the top 4 IIMs, as per the NIRF Ranking.

Ever since the IIM Act came into force in 2018, all the IIMs are free to make changes without needing government approval. 

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