Karnataka | No increase in fee for medical courses this year

State government decides not to increase fees for medical courses, despite demands from private colleges, maintaining current rates.

In a relief to students, the State government, which allowed a 10% increase in fees for engineering and architecture courses recently, has decided not to increase the fees of undergraduate medical courses for the academic year 2024-25. Private medical and dental college managements were demanding a fee hike of 10 to 15%.

Sources said discussions have also taken place at the government level to increase the government quota seat fees in government medical colleges, but no decision has been made yet.

The State government has not increased the fees of medical courses since 2021-22. In 2018-19, the government allowed private medical and dental college managements to increase the fees by 26%. In 2019-20 and 2020-21, it allowed an increase of 15% each year.

Apart from this, there was a one-time fee hike of 199% in 2018-19 for government quota seats in government medical colleges.

Now, the fee for the MBBS course in government medical colleges is ₹50,000 a year and ₹1,28,746 for government quota seats in private medical colleges. The same fee will be continued for the academic year of 2024-25.

Last year, talks broke down between private medical and dental college managements and the government regarding the increase in the fee for medical courses. The government had agreed to increase the fees by 10%. But private medical colleges insisted on a 15 to 20% fee hike. Private medical and dental college managements belonging to minority communities agreed to a fee hike of 10% and the rest of the colleges did not increase the fees.

This year again, they submitted a request to the government for a fee increase of 10 to 20%.