Loan and Scholarships for MBA!
The most expensive education in India is an MBA. It costs around Rs. 30 lakhs* for tier I colleges and around Rs. 10-20 lakhs for tier II & III colleges. If your parents are wealthy, don’t bother about it! But if it is a matter of concern for you, there are many avenues to finance your education from education loans to scholarships.
Education Loan
The majority of students take a loan. The interest rate varies from 8% to 13 %, depending upon banks and colleges. For all IIMs, it is on the lower side and includes many expenses from tuition fee, book expenses, laptop expenses to monthly expenses. The processing period can range from 1 day to 2 weeks, many banks do booth camping in the college during registration and process the loan very quickly. You can take full as well as part of your education fee even if you pay before processing; it can be reimbursed. There is also no problem of the mortgage; the loan can be taken even without a co-borrower or guarantor, only on the name of the candidate!
Scholarships
“Any Students should not be deprived of education because of financial constraints” This is 100% valid when it comes to IIMs.
A small story. A student got admission offer from the IIM Bangalore, that student did not have money to travel to the Bangalore, IIM Bangalore gave him a ticket to travel to the college!
In almost all IIMs, there is a provision to provide financial aid majorly on need-based criteria. This includes the tuition fee only. Other expenses can be taken care of by taking a loan. Also, this scheme is only for the poorest of the poor. Hence limited students get this financial aid, roughly 10%.
Usually, financial aid takes time; there are procedures to assess the need. In the case of IIM Bangalore, this involves two stem process. First, a candidate needs to fill the application form along with asset as well as liability details of family members, with proper proof of documents of the claim. In the second stage, there is a face to face interaction with the student by a committee to assess the need of candidates. After that, candidates are given financial aid of 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% of the tuition fee depending on the severity of the financial constraint of students. But limited no of students gets it, roughly 10%. Although the amount of financial aid is decided in the first year but can be revised in the second year, if the severity increases, then the amount would be increased or if it decreases, then the amount might be reduced for the second year.
Other II Ms are following a similar procedure; it is advisable to visit the website of the college you are interested in and check details, processes, documents, required dates, etc. Usually, there is an office in every IIMs which looks for financial aid and scholarship, contact them for details.
Government Scholarship
There is a central scholarship which is for SC/ST, DA, minority, and for kin of security forces, details can be found on
National Scholarship Portal. There is also scholarship from state governments, but policies vary from state to state, and it is given only to students who are domicile to that particular state ( I am from Uttar Pradesh and studying in IIM Bangalore, so under schemes of UP government I would be offered scholarship for higher studies in Karnataka by the UP government)
There also scholarship given by many corporate companies and trusts, but these scholarships are generally based on merits, and some of them are prestigious like Aditya Birla Scholarship and Citi women’s Leader Award. You can check other scholarships here
Financial Aid IIM Bangalore only for IIM Bangalore.
There are also many case competitions with huge prize money. But it required expertise and a lot of preparation to win those competitions. This could also be a source of revenue for students still in college.
Ultimately, if you are in a good institute, there are a lot of opportunities. Do not think of not doing an MBA because of a lack of money.