One of the assurances given to a student while taking admission into BITS Pilani is that the tuition fees will not be increased by more than 15 percent per annum. The last few years have seen this limit being maximized with alarming regularity, so much so that there is now real concern amongst students regarding affordability of education in this Institute, not only for current batches but also for the future generation. The Director of BITS Pilani, Pilani campus, Professor A.K. Sarkar, spoke about this issue in a candid chat with the English Press Club.

The Director started off by addressing the steady increase in fees for the past 7-8 years. He admitted that the administration was reluctant to increase the fees, but was compelled to do so. He asserted that BITS was an entirely private enterprise. Thus, to compete with Government funded colleges such as IITs and NITs, increasing fees was necessary. “There was no way out”, he declared.

He went on to explain that particularly for this year the implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission had forced their hand. The faculty had to be paid at least in par with the other Government funded institutions to keep BITS an attractive destination. He also hoped that the 15 percent upper limit to fee-increment would not be reached next year, but remained non-committal since he would not be the only person making the final call.

He denied the role of Project Parivartan or the setup of sister campuses in this decision, “Parivartan money is not coming from the fees. We had some endowment and are taking loans.”

The conversation then moved on to another topical issue – the recent influx of international students, and their fee structure. The Director insisted that this intake was not under the ‘DASA (Direct Admission for Students Abroad) scheme,’ which also exists in NITs and IIITs. “This has been a conscious decision,” he said. “You might be happy to note that we are in the list of the top world universities. Earlier this wasn’t the case. One of their parameters, is the [intake of] foreign students. So we are trying to chip in in each and every area so our ranking goes up.”

The International students are expected to pay a considerably higher fee than the regular students. The Director said that this was because the fees structure abroad is significantly higher, and hence, the extra amount paid by the international students is not expected to be a financial burden on them.

The question of increased intake in all three campuses was then taken up. Prof. Sarkar said that this increase has been gradual. He also spoke about the need to produce more quality engineers and scientists in the country and said that there was a lot of pressure to set up more BITS campuses in other states of the country as well. “Most of the US universities have 30,000-40,000 students. We are nowhere near them and we don’t want to reach that number either, but there was no way out rather than increasing adequate number of seats.”

When questioned on how the increased intake was affecting the teacher student ratio, the Director did express concern, calling faculty recruitment the greatest problem faced by the Institute. He claimed this was a problem across the country with even the IITs being affected, but they were working on a solution, “We have also now devised a new method of recruitment, to reach to more number of probable faculty.” He cited comparatively lower salary than that being offered in industry just after graduation, and stringent pre-requisites as hurdles to faculty recruitment. This has become more difficult with the proliferation of IITs and NITs and good private institutions.

Apart from the faculty, the increased revenue is being diverted to several other channels. While Project Parivartan is being independently funded, the new infrastructure needs to be maintained. Laboratories have been revamped, and the Institute will continue investing in them. The Director also spoke about upcoming projects, “We are in the process of creating central instrumentation facilities which will be inaugurated shortly. The institute is spending Rs. 15 crores (Rs. 5 crores in each of the Indian campuses) every year for improving the research facilities in the campuses.” He concluded by contending that the Institute was charging fees no more than what most private institutes in India would ask despite the aforementioned expenditures.

The Director was open to proposals to amend and enhance the scholarship schemes on campus. When queried about a scholarship on admission for high scorers in BITSAT, he agreed that it would be a good idea and that the Institute would look into it. He claimed that the MCN band was also being amended with the SWDs of all 3 campuses working together.

The alarming dip in cut-offs was brought up during the discourse. The Director opined that prima facie, the fee hike did not appear to be a reason for this. He suggested three possible reasons: The Supreme Court case stalling IIT admissions, the increase in the number of seats, and students over-relying on previous year’s BITSAT cut-offs and consequently not applying.

However, the Director expressed concern about the issue. “We are going to investigate the possible reasons,” he said, adding that the authorities are considering speaking to the candidates who are withdrawing to diagnose the ‘real reasons’. Any correlation found between the fall in cutoffs and increase in fees might lead to a re-evaluation of the future plans. Nonetheless, the Director personally didn’t consider affordability to be a reason for the reason for the drop in cut-offs.

The Director hoped that the fees would stabilise in a few years. This would happen after the labs are equipped adequately. Furthermore, he stated that Pilani had reached almost the saturation point in terms of expansion. “We are in the process of transition,” said Prof Sarkar, “It’ll settle down in 4-5 years, I’m hoping”

He concluded by saying that no one was happy about the fees hike, but it was a well thought out decision. He took immense pride in the transparency of the institute both in terms of academic, accounting and admission processes. However, he was worried about complacency setting into the student body in the recent times..