Anna University’s syndicate at its meeting on Wednesday decided to reduce the fees for non-resident Indian students from the next academic year.
The university allocates 5% of the total sanctioned strength to the NRI category in each branch of B.E., B.Tech., B.Plan programmes respectively. These are supernumerary, according to the university’s prospectus for 2023-24. In B.Arch, for NRI category, 5% of the seats are allotted within the sanctioned strength.
The University charges USD 250 as an application fee and a couple of years ago, the annual tuition fee ranged from USD 5,000 to USD 7,500 depending upon the course.
Admission under NRI quota has been under criticism for several reasons. If a decade ago parents complained of not being informed about the reduced number of seats, then a few years later, the University was mired in a controversy where some professors were accused of taking bribes to pass some NRI students.
University Vice-Chancellor R. Velraj said the fee for NRI students “for non-popular branches” had been reduced - for branches other than computer science engineering, information technology and electronics and communication Engineering.
Anna University’s four departments, namely the College of Engineering, Guindy; the Madras Institute of Technology; Alagappa College of Technology; and the School of Architecture and Planning; admit students under the NRI category.
An official of the self-financing colleges consortium said tightening the admission process for NRI category was also a reason for poor admission to the University’s departments.
In the past the University participated in education fairs abroad and promoted their institution, but that practice has been abandoned for some time now.
