COMEDK shocker once again: 30% fee hike in private medical colleges

Karnataka: The breakthrough between the state government and the Karnataka Professional Colleges Foundation now means that medical aspirants will have to pay Rs 5.75 Lakh under COMEDK quota. For government quota it is Rs 70,000 per year. This is the fee structure for admission in private medical colleges. Student organisation's have threatened a strike over the steep fee hike.

It now seems that the final phase of negotiations between the state government and private medical colleges has led the government bowing down under the pressure of demand of a steep fee hike. The only good news for the students community is now that they will access to 40 percent state government quota seats through CET. Medical seats under CET is now 2,491. Besides, 35% seats of dental seats in government quota.

Speaking on the issue of fee hike by the private medical colleges, Pratusha, a parent said, “It will not be possible for middle-class families to pay so much for their child’s medical education. The fee has been increased without any logic," reports Express.

This is now an additional fee hike agreed by the government, even though it earlier agreed upon a 10% hike.

Medical Education Minister Sharanprakash Patil claimed that the hike was “inevitable” as private colleges had threatened that they would fill their seats through the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) rankings which would put students in the State (who have already written the Common Entrance Test) at a disadvantage as they would have fewer seats.

So, is this fee hike really a fall out of NEET. A steep increase of 41.8% in the fee for dental course admission through COMEDK quota, in comparison to last year's fee hike of 28.5% has left many questions unanswered.

The students are upset with the private medical colleges with their sudden steep increment in College fee under COMEDK quota, as one of the medial aspirant asked, "if an institution exploited students and parents by charging high fees, we could approach the government. But when government itself signs an agreement to hike the fee, whom do we approach."

Now there will be two round of counselling for medical course admissions this year.

Dr. Patil also said to media that the option entry for medical seats was likely to begin on Friday. The KEA is, however, still to announce the fresh calendar of events.