The Fee Regulating Authority is considering capping fees for NRI and management quota admissions in private professional courses beyond the medical stream
The Maharashtra Fee Regulating Authority (FRA) is likely to soon fix an upper limit on the fees charged from students admitted under NRI and management quota seats in private unaided professional colleges offering courses like engineering, MBA, pharmacy, law, BEd, and others, reported timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
At present, private medical colleges are restricted from charging more than three times the regular fee for management quota seats and five times for NRI quota seats. However, no such fee structure has been defined for engineering, management, pharmacy, agricultural, or other professional courses under the higher and technical education department. A government official confirmed that the matter had been flagged for the FRA’s attention but is yet to be formally discussed.
An FRA representative explained that in medical colleges, the higher fees collected from NRI and management quota students often serve to cross-subsidize tuition for merit-based candidates. Whether this model can be extended to other professional courses is under review, the official added.
Currently, fee caps exist only for medical and allied health courses — leaving other professional courses without a regulatory ceiling for NRI and management quota seats
A principal from an engineering college clarified that institutions must apply to the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) each year for permission to allot NRI quota seats, which typically fall under the 20% institutional quota. Depending on the college’s infrastructure, including the availability of hostels, some may request supernumerary seats for NRI students, above their regular intake.
The principal further noted that despite old guidelines permitting colleges to charge up to five times the regular FRA-approved fees for NRI students, most institutions refrain from doing so. “If the approved fee is ₹2 lakh, charging ₹10 lakh would make it hard to attract enough NRI applicants to fill those seats,” he explained.
Since the Maharashtra Unaided Private Professional Education Institutions (Regulation of Admissions and Fees) Act came into effect in 2015, there has been no formal policy outlining fee structures for NRI and management quota seats in non-medical professional courses, according to another principal.
