MBBSCouncil

I am going to discuss how National Medical Commission (NMC) fee regulation 2022 is going to increase tuition fees of few private colleges to 40 lakhs/year.

If you are thinking, why NMC fee regulation is increasing fees instead of decreasing private college fees to government college fees.

Tuition fees of private colleges are like see saw. If tuition fees for one half of the class decreases, other half of the class will have to bear that cost. If you think, this is not correct, comment below after reading this complete article, who should bear this cost.

Should it be government which means tax paying citizens or private colleges or low ranking students.

How Much Does It Cost to Produce 1 Doctor?

Before moving on to NMC fee regulation 2022, we need to know how much it costs to produce one doctor in India.

According to study conducted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences, government spends 1 crore to 1.7 crores to produce one doctor. Government college tuition fees range between Rs 10000/year and Rs 1.5 lakhs/year. So, 1 crore is given by the tax payer.

Lets take private medical colleges, most of the private college charge around 20 lakhs/year tuition fees which comes to around 1 crore /year. this means any private college which charges less than 20 lakhs/year are managing their college more efficiently than the government medical colleges.

Now the question is why are we expecting private medical college to spend 1 crore for every doctor but want them to charge only 1% of the total expense as tuition fees.

Private Medical College Are “Not For Profit” But Not Charity

First thing, we forget to remember is that Private colleges are “not for profit” organizations. it is not a charity.

Fees Fixation Committee

We should first understand how tuition fees is fixed in private medical college to get more clarity on the fees. Each and every state government health department has formed a fees fixation committee. this committee will have at least one retired judge, one charted accountant, 1 cost accountant, 1 IAS rank officer, and few educationalist with medical background.

Fee fixation committee decides the tuition fees based on the expenditure incurred by the college for its operations. You can see sample audit report format below.

College management should give breakup of teacher salary, non teaching staff salary, the mode in which payment is made, whether it is done online transfer, or cheque or cash, etc.

As I said earlier, Educational institutions are considered as not for profit organizations and the fees collected should be sufficient enough to cover all the expenses. So total expenses will be divided by the total course strength to arrive at the tuition fees per student.

Which Medical College Expenses are considered to calculate Tuition Fees?

Do you know hospital expenses are not included while calculating the cost for providing medical education. Newly established medical college are allowed to include the loss from hospital into expenses of the college for the first 5 years.

Similarly stipend paid to the students will be considered as part of hospital expenses. So it should not be added as cost of the medical college and should be negleted while calculating tution fees. do you know there are private college hospitals which do not pay stipend during one year internship?.

Not knowing key information like stipend, beds, patient flow during neet admission counselling will affect your college selection.

What is the point in joining MD radiodiagnosis course in medical college which does not have MRI scan machine?.

You can find key information for all medical colleges in India by installing MBBSCouncil android app.

Apart from tuition fees, medical colleges can charge 10% of operating cost as development fees for growth and expansion of the college. Other fees which includes hostel fees, mees fees, transport, library and examination fees should also be based on the actual expenses incurred by college to provide these services.

Different Fees Fixation Methods Adopted By States

Various states adopt different methods. Some states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab fixes uniform tuition fees for all private colleges within that state. They arrrive at fees based on the median cost incurred considering all college expenses on consensus basis.

Some states like Uttar pradesh, maharasthra, madhya pradesh fixes tution fees on per college basis. they look at the operating expenses of the college to determine its tuition fees.

Ashwini Rural Medical College Previous Year Tuition Fees

You can see the approved fee calculation sheet for Ashwini rural medical college during 2021 admission.

Tuition fees in this college is fixed at Rs 6.44 lakhs/year during 2017. it increased to 6.75 lakhs during 2018. during 2019, it jumped up to 8 lakhs/year and during 2020, it was 9.6 lakhs/year. For the year, 2021 medical college had proposed tuition fees of Rs 10.4 lakhs/year based on the expenses filed together with this proposal form.

Salary expenses for this college stood at Rs 28 crores for teaching and non teaching staff. If you are wondering why it is very high? You need to understand the MSR requirements. MSR means minimum standard requirements for annual admission regulations. It states that for college with 100 MBBS seats, it should have 90 teaching faculty and 60 tutors. Even, if we consider 1 lakh/month average salary, for 150, the total comes to 18 crores/year.

Minimum Standard Requirements By NMC

Knowing minimum standard requirements for 100, 150, 200, 250 MBBS capacity colleges will help you understand whether the college you choose have these minimum standard requirements.

Calculating tuition fees based on Expenses

Other operational expenses like rent, interest comes to around 5.5 crores. this college does not pay stipend. so the total expenses after calculating depreciation comes to around 41.75 crores. if we divide it by total students which is 450. we get 9.3 lakhs/year per student.

After adding 10% development fees, the total fees comes to around 10.4 lakhs/year.

Lets say the tution fees is reduced for 50% of students close to government fees which is 1 lakh/year. the tuition fees would almost double for the other 50% students. For Ashwini rural medical college, tuition fees would be 21 lakhs/year.

Do you know some private colleges is India are already charging more than 40 lakhs/year as tuition fees for the past few years because 40% students are already studying in government fees in those medical college?

For example, Sapthagiri Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangalore charges 60 lakhs/year tuition fees for 20% of its students. this is because 40% of its students pay 1.4 lakhs/year tuition fees.

More than 100 private colleges in India already charge tuition fees of more than 20 lakhs/year. So for these college, tuition fees is going to double for these medical colleges which will degrade the quality of medical education.

Going forward, there will be less demand for these highly priced medical seats and colleges will be forced to cut costs affecting the quality of education.

I would like to hear your views about NMC fees regulation below. Who should cover the cost of reduced government college fees for 50% of seats. Should it be borne by government, private medical college or low ranking NEET candidates.