Hyderabad: Students who wish to apply to more than one college end up paying a hefty amount in application fees without a guarantee of being admitted into the college. The fee is taken in payment for the prospectus or as an online processing fee.
Most colleges have made it mandatory for students to pay at least Rs 500 for the prospectus which also has the admission form.
“My younger sister wanted to join the same college from where I was doing my honours. Although I had the prospectus at home, she was required to buy one. I had bought it for Rs 200 but she had to pay Rs 600 two years later,” says Namita Ruparel, an ex-student of St. Francis College.
The prospectus gives information about the history, infrastructure, courses offered, fee structure etc of a college. Today, all popular colleges have updated websites that share the same information.
Colleges that have their own private online portals for admission take the same amount of fees in the name of processing fees.
“I believe the practice of having us pay for the prospectus, which is given along with the admission form, is a way of swindling money from us. All the information is freely available and yet we do not have a choice in this matter. We will not get the admission form without the prospectus,” says Avinash Goud, a disgruntled student.
Admission for degree colleges has to be done online since 2016. Around 40 colleges went to court to demand that they be allowed to conduct their own admission process. They got the permission to do so last year and now have their own websites.
“We have started an online portal in our website that is solely dedicated to admissions. The Telangana government portal would mean that all students are allotted to the college of their choice according to merit. We have a different set of criteria and therefore we filed against the practice. We charge Rs 500 as admission processing fee as it is done online now,” said Mahender Reddy, director of St Mary’s.
Prof. K. Venkata Chalam, the vice chairman of the Telangana State Council of Higher Education, says, “The decision is still pending before the court. If the court decides in favour of them, then these admission practices will continue. By making the admission procedure completely online, we can create a central system that does not demand any extra fees before admission.”
