Explained: New guidelines for lower fees in private medical colleges

Which seats will be available at lower costs and who will benefit?

Out of the 85,000 medical seats in the country, about half each are in 276 private colleges (41,190 seats) and 286 government colleges (43,237). According to experts, in addition to the seats in the government colleges, half the seats in private colleges (or about 20,000) too will be available to students at lower tuition fees determined by the government.

“This is a big step as it essentially means that 75% of total medical seats will be available at nominal costs. Earlier, students who missed the government seats by a few marks could not study in private medical colleges because of the high costs, especially in the deemed universities,” said Dr M C Misra, former director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences and former vice chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Science and Technology-Jaipur.

A member of the NMC said students will be granted these seats as per merit in the NEET-UG test. “The students will first be given the seats at government medical colleges, their next option would be the seats in private medical colleges (at government determined fees) and then the rest of the private seats. All admissions will be through merit.”

In the past, some states had capped the fee charged by some private medical colleges, but the norms were not uniform across the country. Even then, the regulated or capped fees in private colleges was higher than in government medical colleges in that state. The gap between the capped fee for private medical colleges and government medical fees varied from a few thousand rupees a year to a couple of lakh rupees.

“But there was no control on the fee structure for private deemed universities at all. Their fees were decided by their internal committees. Now, they have also been brought under the ambit of the state regulatory committees,” said the member of the National Medical Commission, on condition of anonymity.

What’s even more important is that the colleges will not be able to charge any arbitrary fees for the remaining 50% seats. The fee for these seats will be fixed by the state regulatory fee committee.

How will the cost be fixed for the remaining seats in private colleges?

The guidelines state that no capitation fees can be charged by the medical colleges and the determination of the fees will be on a “not-for-profit” basis.

The operating cost of the medical college will form the basis for the fee structure; the operating cost will be calculated on the basis of the audit report from the previous financial year (for the last three years at the moment because of the pandemic). For a new college without an audit report, the fee structure would be calculated on an ad-hoc basis based on the audit of the most recently established medical college in the state.

The fee fixed for a student joining the college should remain the same for the entire duration of the study, subject to inflation adjustment. The medical colleges will also be allowed to charge a development fee that can range between 6 to 15% on operating cost, depending on their previous expenditure and development plans at present and linked to national rank once the ranking system is in place.

No cost of running a hospital associated with the medical college can be included in the student fees. In case of a hospital running at a heavy loss, the state fee regulatory committee may allow the college to charge a portion of it from the students for a period of five to seven years.

“The cost of medical college hospitals should be included in the fee structure as it subsidises treatment cost in these hospitals, which brings in more patients. This helps students learn better. However, this will also result in high fees. Hence the government has to look into a PPP model,” said Dr Rohan Krishnan, president, Federation of All India Medical Association.

How have private medical colleges reacted to the new guidelines?

Dr Asmita Jagtap, executive director, Bharati Vidyapeeth Health Sciences, said it is natural that if 50% seats are subsidised and offered at fees of government medical colleges, the cost would be passed on to management quota seats.

Rahul Karad, executive director of MIT group of institutions, said if subsidised fees had to be charged for 50 per cent of the seats, it would be natural for the private medical colleges to pass on the additional cost to management quota seats.

“Traditionally that has been the pattern here, that 80% seats go to the merit students at a much lower fee and 20% seats are the management quota seats which are charged at a premium to students who can afford the fees but cannot get in through the merit quota. I haven’t yet read the guidelines in detail, but it is natural that if fees for 50% of total intake capacity are to be reduced, then the costs need to be offset, and it is likely that fees of management quota seats will become more expensive. In India, we have a problem of demand and supply — the seats in medical colleges are few and demand is high, which is also the reason for high costs. If the Medical Council allows each medical college to offer more seats, we can offset the costs naturally through division,” he said.

(With inputs from Alifiya Khan in Pune)