MBA Fees In India 2019 | College Wise: Days Take To Recover Fee?

A survey by InsideIIM has revealed in a report that the cost of an MBA programme is one of the Top-5 reasons for an MBA aspirant while selecting a business school to join. An MBA in India is not cheap, and more often than not, the elite business schools with significant repute charge the highest MBA fees in India, with exception of course. This report aims to delve deep inside the expectations of an MBA aspirant when it comes to the fees of an MBA programme, the actual fees that B-schools charge, and an assessment of the Return on Investment of a business school in 2019. This report will be split into 4 parts. You can click on any of the hyperlinks below to jump to that part of the report - Part 1 - Here, we analyse one of the most important factor for MBA aspirants to consider - the Return on Investment of an MBA from India's Top-30 MBA colleges.* We analyse the RoI factor by juxtaposing the fees with the average and median CTCs, and also attempt to estimate the number of days in which one can recover the cost of an MBA. Part 2 - Here, we analyse the reasonable expected cost of an MBA as per MBA aspirants. This information tells us the maximum and minimum fees ranges that aspirants believe is a reasonable amount to pay for an MBA in India in 2019. Part 3 - Here, we compare the data from aspirant expectations in Part 2 with the actual fees that Indian MBA institutes charge. This part of the report explains to us the parity/disparity in the expectations and reality of MBA fees in India. Part 4 - Here, we analyse the average fees that an MBA student would have to pay if she were to join a business school in 2019. We also take a look at the annual/biennial revenue that Indian B-schools earn just from the fees obtained from students. This part also lists out, in ascending order, the cost of doing an MBA from India's Top-30 business schools *The list of the Top-30 business school has been obtained from the InsideIIM MBA Rankings 2019 report published in April 2019.

MBA Fees In India - Part 1 - Return on Investment (RoI) of An MBA From India's Top-30 B-Schools

Placements offered and programme fee are among the top-5 components that MBA aspirants consider while selecting a business school, as was found in this report by InsideIIM. These two components, placements and fees, are the two essential components of calculating the Return on Investment, i.e., in how many days will you be able to recover the cost of an MBA. This part of the report is concerned with the RoI of an MBA from India's To-30 most desirable business schools.

RoI Based On Average CTC

Method:

1. Average CTC data was collected from the official B-school placement reports on the institute websites and InsideIIM.com.
2. Based on industry standards, 80% of the average CTC was calculated to arrive at an estimated in-hand salary figure.
3. The estimated number of days to pay back fees was calculated by computing the ratio of B-schools fees and 80% the estimated in-hand salary, multiplied by 365, allowing for 20% of the in-hand salary as assumed annual expenditure.

Note:

1. The average CTC data for IIM Lucknow was not available in the public domain.
2. The average CTC data for DMS IIT Delhi, JBIMS Mumbai, IIM Raipur, IIM Udaipur, NMIMS Mumbai, IIM Ahmedabad and ISB is for the Class of 2018. The rest of the figures are for the Class of 2019.
3. The 2-year fee for IIM Shillong's PGP programme is an estimated figure and may not reflect the latest figures.

Based on this information, the following observations can be made: The actual figures in the last column, i.e., number of days to recover costs, are perhaps much higher than the estimate and only reflect the best-case scenario by assuming only 20% of the in-hand salary as expenditure. It is interesting to see the figures relevant to FMS Delhi, where one can recover their entire tuition fee within 50 days of receiving their 1st month's salary. In fact, perhaps the MBA students at FMS recover their entire tuition cost during their summer internships. Compare this with ISB, where a PGP student would take approximately 2 years and 5¹⁄2 months to recover the costs of their 1-year MBA. Without a doubt, the students at ISB are paying 150% more fees than students at IIM Ahmedabad - one of the most expensive business schools of India. However, it is also important to note that ISB students start earning one year earlier when compared to the 2-year PGP at IIM-A. Therefore, students enrolled in a 2-year programme at IIM Ahmedabad end up recovering the costs in approximately the same duration as their counterparts in a 1-year PGP course at ISB, even though ISB costs significantly more. It is important to note that Average CTC data is not a highly reliable data point to consider while estimating the RoI of a business school. E.g., consider a set of annual CTCs for 3 MBA students - Rs. 6 lakhs, Rs. 12 lakhs, and Rs. 40 lakhs. Here, the average salary figure is approximately Rs. 19 lakhs, which is far from the lowest figure that is Rs. 6 lakhs. This figure becomes even more obscure in B-schools where the batch sizes are very big. Therefore, it is a relatively better practice to consider the median CTC figures to assess a B-school's placement scenario. This takes us to the next section of this part of the report.

RoI Based On Median CTC

Method:

1. Median CTC data was collected from the official B-school placement reports on the institute websites and InsideIIM.com.
2. Based on industry standards, 80% of the median CTC was calculated to arrive at an estimated in-hand salary figure.
3. The estimated number of days to pay back fees was calculated by computing the ratio of B-schools fees and 80% of the estimated in-hand salary, multiplied by 365, allowing for 20% of the in-hand salary as assumed annual expenditure.

Note:

1. The median CTC data for DMS IIT Delhi, IIM Rohtak, IIM Kashipur, IIM Lucknow, IIM Ranchi, and ISB was not available in the public domain.
2. The median CTC data for JBIMS Mumbai, IIM Raipur, IIM Udaipur, NMIMS Mumbai and IIM Ahmedabad is for the Class of 2018. The rest of the figures are for the Class of 2019.
3. The 2-year fee for IIM Shillong's PGP programme is an estimated figure and may not reflect the latest figures.

MBA Fees In India - Part 2 - Analysing The Expectations Of MBA Aspirants

As a part of an extensive survey that InsideIIM conducted, MBA aspirants were asked to select from 8 fees ranges a range which they felt was the most acceptable and reasonable to pay for an MBA programme in an Indian B-school. Here are the results of the survey. 26% of the respondents believe that Rs. 15 Lakhs - Rs. 20 Lakhs is a reasonable cost of doing an MBA. In 2015, just 15% of MBA aspirants believed that this was a reasonable cost. Back then, most believed that Rs. 13 lakhs to Rs. 15 lakhs was more than enough to pursue a 2-year programme from a top B-school. In fact, for 3 consecutive years, Rs. 15 lakhs was the highest that aspirants thought business schools should charge for an MBA. The minority percentage of respondents who believe that Rs. 20 Lakhs+ is a reasonable cost of an MBA has reduced by 1 percentage point from last year. Furthermore, aspirants have realised that realistically, an MBA is not likely to cost less than Rs. 5 lakhs and only 4% of the respondents believe that an MBA should not cost more than Rs. 5 Lakhs. Even when looked at holistically, 75% respondents are of the belief that the cost of an MBA upwards of Rs. 10 Lakhs is reasonable. Even though this is a drop of 4 percentage points from last year, it is an increase of 10 percentage points from just 3 years back! It appears that aspirants have come to terms with the fact that an MBA is expensive and costs are only going to increase in the future years. However, there is a threshold beyond which an MBA is not worth it; in this case, Rs. 20 lakhs is the cap for the amount that an MBA aspirant is willing to shell out, at least in 2019. Compared to last year, MBA aspirants are now ready to shell out more money and the reasonable range of MBA fees in India has gone up to INR 15 lakhs - INR 20 lakhs. As compared to last year, an even lesser number of aspirants believe that fees in excess of Rs. 20 lakhs is a bad investment. It may come as a shock to the rest of the 95% respondents to know that the older IIMs - A, B & C, charge a fee that is much higher than their budget. ISB is another story altogether. Only a meagre 4% of MBA aspirants believe that reasonable fees should be less than Rs. 5 lakhs. Expecting to enter a top B-school and paying less than 5 lakhs is not a distant dream - FMS Delhi and TISS Mumbai are already offering full-time post-graduation programmes that cost far lesser than Rs. 5 lakhs. When compared with data from 4 years back, expectations of a reasonable cost of an MBA has seen a gradual skew from a range of Rs. 13 lakhs to Rs. 15 lakhs,  towards a range between Rs. 15 lakhs to Rs.20 lakhs.

Conclusion

Overall, the InsideIIM survey reveals that close to half the respondents expect an ideal fee range to be between Rs. 13.00 lakhs and Rs. 20 lakhs, and anything below Rs. 7 lakhs or over Rs. 20 lakhs is deemed an unrealistic expectation.

MBA Fees In India - Part 3 - Match Between Expectation & Reality - Analysing Fees That Indian B-Schools Charge 

The third part of this report will undertake an analysis of the fees charged by the Top-30 Indian business schools, ranked as per the results of the InsideIIM MBA Rankings report. Note - The data for fees of the various institutes have been gathered from the information available on their respective websites. We understand that some of these figures may be not be latest and may not reflect the actual fees for the incoming Class of 2021. We will update the data for fees as and when we obtain that information.  Let's go back to Part 1, where data suggests that MBA aspirants expect the reasonable cost of an MBA to be in the range of Rs. 13.00 lakhs and Rs. 20 lakhs. At least 7 out of 30, i.e., close to 25% of the B-schools in the aforementioned list charge more than the cap set by MBA aspirants when it comes to a reasonable fees for an MBA. These institutes include IIMs Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, XLRI, ISB Hyderabad, MDI Gurgaon and SIBM Pune - elite management institutes ranked amongst the Top-16 most desirable business schools of India. When we look at ISB Hyderabad, the fees of the institute exceeds the cap set by aspirants by over 73%, or close to Rs. 15 lakhs. The fee at IIM A exceeds expectations by 15%, while fee at IIMs B and C exceeds expectations by 5%. Remember, this is in excess of the upper limit set by MBA aspirants for a reasonable cost of an MBA. Out of the Top-30 B-schools in India, 43% of the B-schools are in the range of a reasonable cost of an MBA, as per MBA aspirants. These include IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore, IIFT Delhi and Kolkata, IIM Ranchi, IIM Udaipur, NMIMS Mumbai, MICA Ahmedabad, NITIE Mumbai and IIM Trichy, IIM Kashipur, and SPJIMR Mumbai. This implies that more or less, the expectations of MBA aspirants are congruent with the actual fees that MBA institutes charge. However, what's interesting is that even though only 35% of the respondents believe that MBA fees in India should be in the range of anything under Rs. 5 lakhs to Rs. 13 lakhs, 30% of the Top-30 most desirable B-schools in India charge in that range.

Conclusion

On closer scrutiny, it is revealed that there is a significant match between expectations and reality when it comes to MBA fees in India. However, the most aspirational business schools charge the highest fees, and in the coming years, these figures are only going to rise. Will we see a shift in expectations as well? Is that day near when 50% of MBA aspirants feel that fees of Rs. 25 lakhs to Rs. 30 lakhs is reasonable? It seems likely, based on the shift in opinion over a period of half a decade.

MBA Fees In India - Part 4 - Average Fees, And Revenue From Fees For B-Schools

In the final part of this report, we analyse the average fees that B-schools charge MBA aspirants in 2019, and also compute the total revenue that business schools earn through just fees. Note - The fees for IIM Shillong is a rough estimate of the fees that will be charged by the institute for the Class of 2021. Once the exact information is received, the average fees will be re-calculated and is likely to increase. On average, an MBA aspirant, to join India's Top-30 business schools, has to pay a fee of Rs. 15.14 lakhs for a 1-year/2-year programme. The median fees is Rs. 15.41 lakhs.

Observations

• The Indian School of Business, across its campuses at Hyderabad and Mohali, earns a total of Rs. 307.19 crores ($44 million) per year just from fees. It has the largest cumulative batch, the highest fees, and the shortest duration of programmes. So essentially, while IIM Ahmedabad earns Rs. 91 crores ($13 million) in two years, ISB Hyderabad earns Rs. 614 crores ($88 million), almost 7 times one of India's most expensive business schools.
• Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi earns nearly 0.8% of the total revenue from fees earned by ISB in 2 years, without accounting for an annual hike in fees for both business schools. FMS Delhi is the cheapest of the elite business schools of India.
• After ISB Hyderabad, the maximum revenue from fees is obtained by NMIMS Mumbai, earning Rs. 116.55 crores ($17 million) for two years. Even though NMIMS has lower fees than ISB (nearly half), NM's batch size is the second highest and technically the highest in this list of the Top-30 B-schools of India, if ISB Hyderabad and Mohali are considered individually.

In case of any discrepancy in any of the figures mentioned in this report on MBA fees in India, please let us know in the comments below. We would also like your honest feedback and suggestions on how we can improve this report!

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Featured image credits - Ishant Mishra