A tad more than what is necessary

When G. Prem, of Ammapet in Salem, went to an aided college at Kondalampatti in the Salem Corporation, he was told to pay ₹100 for the application form and ₹6,000 in annual fee. The government has fixed, for the B.A. course that Mr. Prem had applied for, an annual fee of ₹1,592. The college website was not updated, he said. “It only shows the fee structure for 2022-23, and it was mentioned as ₹900 a year,” says Mr. Prem.

A parent in Tiruchi had a similar experience. “Students are being made to buy admission forms for at least three more subjects, besides their chosen one, in shift II (colleges operate in two shifts — one in the morning and the other in the afternoon), based on their marks. Though my son was interested in applying only for Visual Communications, we ended up buying forms for Geography, History, and Maths, on the advice of the administrative staff. I spent ₹400 on four forms when the alternative options could have been included in a single form. Selling more forms seems to be a new money-spinner for private colleges,” he says. A parent in Chennai says his daughter had applied to two premier colleges in the city. She paid ₹500 and ₹400 as application fees. A friend of hers had paid higher at a college on the outskirts of the city.

No receipts issued

Receipts for application or registration fees are not issued, concedes the principal of a prominent arts and science college in Coimbatore. Officials of the Directorate of Collegiate Education (DCE) admit that there is no mechanism to ensure that self-financing colleges comply with the government order. Academics in Coimbatore say there are visible signs that colleges are deviating from the application and registration fee norms.

During the admission season, parents must set aside several thousand rupees for applications alone. Then, they must scrape together the money needed to pay the tuition fee. Some aided colleges allow students to use a common application form for self-financing programmes; but, at a women’s college in the city, separate application forms must be filed for each programme.

Meanwhile, Bharathiar University recently notified that the registration fee for postgraduate admission was ₹400 for an application and it must be submitted online for each subject. For Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, the fee is ₹200 per subject. A senior professor at the university says students could approach the Fee Nivaran Cell under the University Grants Commission’s e-Samadhaan platform for refund of any excess fee.

A professor of Madurai Kamaraj University says the issue of overcharging has been persisting for years. “Only when there is strong opposition from students or associations, it becomes a matter of concern.” The regulation, which associations and members of the public demand, should have been put in place when private colleges were being established, he says. The online application process, which private colleges claimed would ensure transparency, does not seem to have solved the issue. “When the government-fixed fee is mentioned in the application, in the later stages of admission, the student is being made to pay the remaining amount the college intended to collect,” the professor alleges.

When the government fails to address the issue seriously, what can be done in the aftermath of the processes, he asks. Only when an audit report exposes the issue, will the government talk about it.

‘Calculate the excess fee’

The report of the Comptroller Auditor-General (CAG) on higher education, tabled in the Assembly during the recent Budget session, advised the Directorate of Collegiate Education to ensure that self-financing colleges abide by its instructions on the application fee.

The CAG report indicates that some aided arts and science colleges collected more money for application than the fee fixed by the government. For the period 2021-2024, some colleges had collected ₹50 lakh in application fee, the report says. Some colleges also collected a huge amount as processing fee, as against the ₹48 fixed by the government as the application fee and ₹2 as the registration fee. Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates are required to pay only the registration fee. According to the audit report, some colleges collected the application fee even from these students. The report lists these colleges and among them is Pachaiyappa’s College in Chennai. The report says the college has collected ₹2,14,678 in excess. The report has advised the Regional Joint Directors of Collegiate Education to calculate the excess fee collected and ask the colleges to refund the sum.

A faculty member of the college says that for more than a decade, the institution has been charging ₹100 in application fee for students in shift II (aided), and there is no concession for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe category.

Teachers, however, say most colleges, except government institutions, violate the rule. Teachers’ associations want the Higher Education Department to ensure that colleges do not collect fees other than those prescribed by the government. Professors add that for a student desirous of joining a programme, paying ₹100 or more may not be the issue. They point out that the report cites only a few colleges, but almost all aided and private colleges overcharge. “Some disgruntled students or a group of people within the college would spread the information and someone would file a complaint,” a government college official says, citing the example of Pachaiyappa’s College.

V. Kalaiselvi, Regional Joint Director of Collegiate Education, Coimbatore, who oversees 20 government and 17 self-financing colleges, says all colleges were asked through a circular to charge only the specified fee and refund the excess amount. Self-financing colleges, however, say they have not received any instruction from the government to submit the action-taken report.

Colleges in denial

Ajeet Kumar Lal Mohan, president of the Association of Self-Financing Arts, Science and Management Colleges of Tamil Nadu, says that he has seen a trend among the colleges — permitting students to download the applications free of cost. The colleges collect only the course fee when the filled-up forms are submitted, he says.

Saravanakumar, secretary of zone VII of the Association of University Teachers, says there were no reports of excess fee collection by aided colleges.

The Regional Joint Director of Collegiate Education, Dharmapuri, had followed up with a private college at Neikarapatti in Salem, which had allegedly collected around ₹10,000 in excess, as concluded by the CAG report. The college denied excess fee collection and filed an appeal for rectification of errors in the report. It argued that the audit had mistakenly mentioned the fee collected as the application and processing fees.

A faculty member of a self-financing college in Tiruchi says self-financing courses are more expensive this year owing to the pay hike for teachers in shift II. “Entry-level teachers in the self-financing sections are earning as much as ₹25,000 a month, while the regular stream staff members have not received any pay increase, despite their long service. This is unfair to those who have worked for a long time in the same institution.”

The CAG report is not surprising, says R. Murali, State convenor of Makkal Kalvi Kootiyakkam and former Madurai Kamaraj University Syndicate member. The Higher Education Department has no control over the self-financing colleges, he points out. Several years ago, The Madura College refunded ₹200 to students, years after they completed their courses. The college management decided to return the amount it had collected by mistake, he recalls. As record maintenance has improved, colleges have no excuse for keeping the excess fee. Colleges should be made accountable, and the government could avoid embarrassment by putting in place a mechanism to redress grievances, he says.

K. Ibrahim, State president of the All India Students’ Federation, blames the trend on the craze for some courses. “Admission to B.Com used to cost around ₹2,500 a few years ago. There is a craze for B.Com these days, and many colleges are charging more than ₹20,000 as admission fee for the course that is perceived to guarantee jobs. There has been an increase in the admission fees for humanities courses. Private colleges are exploiting the desperation of parents who are yielding to fulfil their children’s dreams,” Mr. Ibrahim says. The Federation has planned a protest in June against the exorbitant fee collection. “May and June are stressful months for daily wage earners. They approach moneylenders to raise the amount needed for the education of their children,” he adds.

A student who has enrolled in a college in Tiruchi this academic year says the course fees at the self-financing colleges are higher than those for the first-shift classes. “I could get into BBA in shift II, but the fee is ₹24,000. My father works as a shop assistant and my mother is a helper at a noon meal scheme kitchen. We will have to arrange for funds from outside sources to pay the semester fees,” he says.

Call for transparency

S. Pavithran, Salem district secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), urges the government to ensure that all fees, including application fees, are displayed at the entrance of the colleges, besides the phone numbers for filing complaints.

“We need a transparent online application system, centralised fee collection, and regular audits of the affiliated institutions,” says A. Balu, president, Tamil Nadu Association of Intellectuals and Faculty (TAIF). Digital payment trails or application databases could help in returning the excess money to students, he says. Former president of the Association of University Teachers K. Pandiyan also calls for a mechanism to report excess fee collection. “There have been two committees constituted so far, headed by retired judges, to fix the fees, but they did not function,” he says.

Teachers call for amendments to the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges (Regulation) Act, 1978, and common admission guidelines for private, aided, and self-financing colleges. “At present, no one in the Higher Education Department — including the Regional Joint Directors of Collegiate Education or the Directorate of Collegiate Education — takes cognisance of excess fee collection,” Mr. Pandiyan adds.

(With inputs from Nahla Nainar in Tiruchi; Palanivel Rajan in Madurai; M. Sabari in Salem; and R. Krishnamoorthy in Coimbatore.)