Fees for govt. quota seats in engineering and architecture courses in private unaided colleges up by 7.5%

M.C. Sudhakar
| Photo Credit: file photo

Fees for government quota seats in engineering and architecture courses in private unaided technical educational institutions will go up by 7.5% for the academic year 2025-26.

The decision was taken at a fee fixation meeting, chaired by M.C. Sudhakar, Minister for Higher and Education, with representatives of private professional college managements, including Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges Association (KUPECA), and other technical educational institutions and office bearers, on Friday.

Private technical educational institutions had demanded 15% to 20% fee hike, to which the government said it could be between 7% and 8%. Though the association representatives tried to convince the Minister citing pay hike, infrastructure improvement expenditure, maintenance and quality, Dr. Sudhakar was firm in his decision. After a long discussion, a consensus was finally reached to increase the fee by 7.5% on last year’s fee.

Speaking to The Hindu, Dr. Sudhakar said, “Private college managements have been demanding 15% to 20% fee hike to pay salaries to the teaching and non-teaching staff as per the Seventh Pay Commission and develop infrastructure and others. However, last year too, a 10% fee hike was allowed. Therefore, this time, 7.5% fee hike has been allowed so as not to burden students, and the managements have agreed to this.”

With the 7.5% hike, without university registration and other processing fee, the fee will be ₹1,14,199 for CET seats (government quota) in type-1 private colleges. In COMED-K type-1 colleges, it will be ₹2,00,070 and ₹2,81,088 in type-2 colleges.

However, the fees in government and aided engineering colleges will remain the same as that of last year.

In 2024-25, the fee for government quota seats in private engineering colleges was ₹1,06,231. In COMED-K type-1 college it was ₹ 1,86,111 and ₹2,61,477 for type-2 colleges.