Over 20% seats remain vacant at MBA institutes in Maharashtra; only popular colleges offering good placements

Experts say that there has been a continued rise in the number of available seats for MBA in the state over the last few years, but the rise in demand has only been limited to a few popular colleges that provide better placements.

As per the data shared by the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell, this year there were a total of 53,509 seats available for MBA admissions in the state for which 71,245 candidates had registered.

Last year, there were 50,497 seats available for admissions. A total of 71,715 candidates had registered for admissions then but eventually 42,176 confirmed admissions on allotted seats leaving 8,321 seats vacant.

Stating that a closer look at the data shows that the number of registrations has decreased, compared to last year, a CET Cell official said,“Even as this decline is marginal, at the same time there is an increase in the number of seats available for admission this year. Therefore, even as in absolute numbers the total admissions in MBA is more than last year, the vacancy percentage is significantly larger due to increased intake.”

Dr. Shrinivas Dhure, Director of SIMSREE (Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education) said, “MBA is among the popular higher education options among students only if they get admission to their desired college. After MBA, students expect good placement, which is possible at a few institutes. However, considering that there is demand for MBA, new colleges keep coming up or some of the existing ones seek for increase in intake. But they do not get students, leading to such vacancies.”

It was also pointed out by many from the MBA academic circle that it is important to keep a tab on continuously increasing intake capacity for MBA.

“If seats keep increasing without realising if there is actually any need for them, the vacancy percentage will keep rising. For example, despite a lesser number of available seats for admissions, last year 16.4 percent vacancy was recorded and yet there was an increased intake for MBA admissions this year. The percentage of vacancy was expected to increase, more so because there was a decline in the number of applications registering for MBA admissions this year,”director of a management institute said.