On 27th September 2019, the IIT Council had decided to hike the tuition fee for MTech programs at all IITs, to about 2 lakh rupees from 20-50k (currently), over 3 years. Along with this increase of fee, the Council had also decided to scrap the financial assistance of 12400 rupees per month given to all students qualifying GATE. The Council instead proposed income-based scholarships for the PG students, similar to the ones offered to UG students. However, the currently enrolled students were to be exempted from the hiked fee. 1 On December 11, however, the decision of the fee hike was deferred.
Two primary reasons have been given by the government to justify the fee hike- one, to discourage non-serious students who drop out of the MTech program midway to pursue jobs/competitive exams; two, to ensure that IITs offer only those programs which have demand in the market and thereby, ensure immediate placement after completion of the course2, in line with the changing objective of MTech degree.
The decision invited nationwide student protests3, raising concerns about the discouragement to serious MTech students due to fee hike. Vox Populi conducted a campus-wide survey on the issue to understand what IITK students think about the issue and check the ground reality of the concerns raised by the government.
Overview of the Survey
The survey was conducted online over Google Forms for 5 days. It was responded to by 421 IITK students, of which 41.5% of students were current MTech/MS students, 27.3% of students were BTech/ BS/Dual degree students and 27% were Ph.D. students.
Of our 421 respondents, 66.5% of students felt that the fee hike was completely unnecessary/ unjustified. Also, when we asked them if the MHRD promised income-based scholarships would be sufficient to relieve the financial burden of students in need, an overwhelming 75.1% of students responded in the negative.
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High Dropout Rate
IIT Council’s Motivation
The MHRD and IIT Council claim that a large number of M.Tech students (as large as 70% in some streams, according to Director, IIT Delhi) drop out of their course as soon as they get a job. This has been a major point of concern as ‘the country’s precious resources and IIT seats are getting wasted due to dropouts.’ (quoted from a post of Director, IIT Delhi).
Reality Check- Is the Dropout Problem Real?
When we asked our MTech students about their decision if they get recruited by a PSU midway in their MTech program, an overwhelming 37.6 percent of students said that they would drop out of the M.Tech program to pursue the job.
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Although about 2% more students said they would forego their job to continue their MTech program, 37.6 percent is a big enough dropout rate to raise concerns and hence, the motivation of the IIT council and MHRD seems justified.
Is the fee hike going to help bring down the dropout rate?
The IIT Council expects a higher fee to reduce the dropout rate as the student starting a program has a stake in completing the program. Low dropout rates in the more expensive MBA programs in IITs apparently supports the argument.
However, our findings say otherwise.
Of the 164 MTech students (who responded to this question), 84.1% of students said that their decision of dropping out (or not) wouldn’t be affected by a fee hike.
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This isn’t surprising considering that a job at PSU would earn the student 50-80k per month. Since the fee for MTech is to be paid semester-wise, even on dropping out, the student would lose only the current semester’s fee, which would be compensated with only about a month’s income. (even with the hiked fee)
Hence, while the concern of the IIT Council may seem genuine, a fee hike (to about 2 lakhs) doesn’t seem to help the problem.
Industry Relevance of MTech- Changing Objective of MTech
IIT Council’s Motivation
In a Facebook post4, the director, IIT Delhi writes that the objective of the MTech degree has changed from being a bridge course for a Ph.D. to become a means-to-get-a-job. This is because most institutes (including the IITs) are offering admissions, without a Master’s degree, to their Ph.D. programs. Therefore, the Council emphasizes the need for IITs to align their Master’s programs with the market requirements.
Since the IITs will have to attract high-fee-paying students now, the fee hike is expected to motivate the IITs to make their MTech program industry-relevant.
Reality Check- Is the Objective of MTech really changing?
When we asked our MTech students about their objective behind joining the MTech program, we find, in concurrence with IIT Council’s observations, that 53.4 % of students joined the MTech degree to get a job (private or PSU).
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This combined with 16.9% of students, who joined the MTech to pursue entrepreneurship, underlines the importance of industry-relevance of the MTech program.
Reality Check- Status of MTech curriculum in IITK- Outdated or Industry-relevant?
When we asked our MTech students to rate their curriculum on industry-relevance out of 5, we received a mixed response (an approximately normal distribution about the median, slightly skewed towards 5).
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Hence, most MTech students are neither very satisfied nor dissatisfied with the industry-relevance of their program. However, given the increasing need for MTech to be industry-relevant, even an average rating of 3 on 5 is not acceptable and must be improved.
On finely observing the comments of MTech respondents, we find that while branches like Computer Science have a very industry-ready program, other branches like Aerospace get very narrow employment opportunities.
On the other hand, some MTech students think that the industry is outdated, rather than the curriculum. “Unfortunately, the Indian industry in wireless communications works on backdated tech, our M.Tech. equips us far better actually,” wrote one of our respondents.
Another popular opinion has been that IIT Kanpur’s MTech curriculum is too research-heavy and must be made industry oriented ‘like other IITs’. Some MTech students suggested internships in government establishments to ensure industry touch in their program.
Even though most MTech students aren’t very satisfied with the industry-relevance of their program, 61.9% of students think that the fee hike is not at all going to help make MTech more industry-relevant.
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(It must be noted that the question was framed as ‘how much do you think the fee hike can improve the dynamic nature and industry relevance of the MTech program?’ Hence, one might argue, that the relationship between fee hike and improving industry-relevance might not be clear to a respondent who hasn’t read about the issue and hence, the lower ratings)
Hence, here as well, while the concern of the IIT Council seems genuine, most of our respondents do not think that the fee hike is going to help the problem.
Discouraging many serious students from pursuing M.Tech.
IIT Council’s Clarification
After various protests arose across the country over the inability of economically weaker MTech aspirants to afford the hiked fee, the IIT council clarified that needy students will be provided necessary financial support5. The Council resolution also mentions that scholarships similar to the B.Tech students will be provided. “No eligible student in the B.Tech programs has ever been denied admission in IITs because of her/his poor financial background,” wrote Prof. Ramgopal Rao, Director, IITD in a Facebook post.
Reality Check- Are the proposed scholarships sufficient?
However, this is in sharp contrast to the recordings of our survey, which showed that about three-quarters of the students think that these income-based scholarships won’t be sufficient for relieving the financial burden.
The problem with income-based scholarships was also pointed out by many students. “Income-based scholarships don’t take a family’s situation into account. Suppose a family earning 6lpa has to support the education of 3-4 children, then the student won’t be able to afford the education, as he/she wouldn’t be getting any scholarship,” wrote one of the surveyees.
Many M.Tech. students also said that the stipend helped them to take independent decisions regarding their higher studies, which would not have been the case if the stipend was scrapped and the fee was hiked. For then, they would have to depend on their families for financial support.
Reality Check- Are students willing to invest?
About 85.2% of MTech students, who took our survey said they would need some kind of financial help (e.g. an educational loan) to afford the hiked fee.
One might argue that the MTech program would continue to attract serious students despite the hiked fee, as they can get their education financed by a loan. Many analyses have drawn comparison to the MBA programs in IITs and IIMs which hardly see any attrition despite them being highly charged.
However, when we asked our MTech students if they’d be willing to invest the money in their program given the return on investment in the MTech program, only about 16% of students were willing to invest the money, about 27% were unsure and the rest were unwilling.
Our findings clearly puncture the analogy drawn between MBA and MTech programs as apparently, students are willing to take loans for an MBA due to better return on the investment, however, that is not the case for MTech.
Alternative Measures
Our study has established that the motivations behind the fee hike address real concerns, however, the fee hike doesn’t seem to solve these concerns. So, we mull over any alternative measures which can be taken to meet the objective of the fee hike.
While most of our respondent students suggested a moderate fee hike and said that a 900% increase in the fee was insanely huge, our findings have shown that even a 2 lakh fee is not enough to reduce dropouts due to jobs. Hence, a moderate fee hike would be even more redundant in meeting the objective of hiking fees.
Many respondents also believed that to help the dropout problem, IITs could make the students sign a bond or penalize the students who left the programs in between. In a similar suggestion made by Professor Dheeraj Sanghi (erstwhile DoAA, IITK), he writes that a deposit of Rs. 1.2 lakhs be taken from all students, and returned on completion of degree on time6.
Some of our responding students also said that first the MTech curriculum must be made more industry-relevant, if this has a positive impact on placements, only then the fee should be hiked.
A lot of respondent students suggested that to decrease dropout rates, instead of a fee hike, the PSU recruitment must be aligned with the PG admission calendar. However, some argue that even if this happens, the students would be eligible for recruitment the following year so they would then quit after 14-16 months in their M.Tech. rather than after 2-4 months, therefore not helping the problem.
One of our respondents came up with the idea of unifying PSU recruitments and MTech admissions on a single portal, as both happen through GATE. This can be used to ensure that a student chooses only one of them. However, students might still take up private jobs.
Conclusion
A constantly recurring theme across the comments of most of our MTech respondents has been that their MTech curriculum has motivated them to pursue Ph.D. and research. “Most of the Ph.D. students decide to go for a Ph.D. while doing MTech,” wrote one of the respondents. These observations raise some important questions- Is making MTech industry-oriented necessarily desirable, given India’s feeble research culture? Would a fee hike in MTech discourage research in India?
Along with the fee hike, the government has also decided to remove the stipend of the MTech students. However, our respondents put forth that the stipend wasn’t given for free but for working as teaching assistants for about 8 hours a week. Why was the stipend withdrawn? With the withdrawn stipend, how would most Professors get teaching assistants for their courses?
Is fee hike helping the problem of dropouts and industry-relevance of the MTech program? Are there any other measures to resolve the problems while not discouraging serious MTech aspirants? These questions demand a great level of thought and planning from the policymakers.
Writers:- Abhimanyu Sethia, Aayush Priyadarshi
Editors:- Yash Kuwade, Avisha Gaur
Citations:
1. Press Release of MHRD, GoI- https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=138688
2. Clarification Issued by MHRD-https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1586619
3. News Report by The Indian Express- https://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-students-plan-to-protest-against-mtech-fee-hike-6110770/
4. Facebook post-https://twitter.com/ramgopal_rao/status/1178263704942415873
5. Clarification issued by MHRD- https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1586619
6. https://dsanghi.blogspot.com/2019/10/subsidy-on-mtech-programs-to-be-reduced.html
