HYDERABAD: For students across Telangana, the promise of affordable higher education is under strain, with private professional colleges mandating upfront fee payments as fee reimbursement dues of around Rs 9,000 crore remain unpaid.
The shift follows a recent interim relief granted by the Telangana High Court to around 15 private professional colleges, allowing them to collect tuition fees directly from beneficiaries from the 2026-27 academic year. The ripple effect has been immediate.
As many as 135 engineering colleges, 113 pharmacy colleges, 205 BEd colleges, nearly 300 MBA and MCA colleges, 56 polytechnic colleges, 75 nursing colleges and 26 law colleges have now decided to unanimously file implead petitions in the High Court.
Students and student organisations argue that mandating upfront payments places an unfair and discriminatory burden on economically vulnerable sections, threatening to derail access to higher education.
On campuses and college gates, the shift is already visible. Several student organisations, including SFI, Student Islamic Organisation and Association for Socio-Economic Empowerment of the Marginalised (ASEEM), said many colleges have informed students that beneficiaries under the fee reimbursement scheme will not be admitted from the next academic year. In some cases, institutions that secured interim relief have displayed notices announcing the change.
For students from SC, ST, BC, EBC and minority communities, the implications are immediate and severe. For years, the fee reimbursement scheme served as a critical bridge to higher education, assuring students that tuition costs would be borne by the government. With dues pending and payments delayed, that assurance now stands uncertain, even as institutions pass the burden back to students.
While student groups acknowledged the financial strain faced by institutions due to non-release of funds, they maintained that shifting the cost to underprivileged students is both insensitive and exclusionary, with the potential to push many out of the system altogether.
“We come from families that depend entirely on the fee reimbursement scheme. Asking us to pay lakhs upfront is not just difficult, it’s impossible. This decision could force many of us to drop out,” said a second-year engineering student from Hyderabad, requesting anonymity.
“With the sudden decision of the professional colleges to take legal recourse, I am in a dilemma. I will complete my course by mid-September, but while leaving the college, I may face problems in collecting my certificate,” said R Mohan, a fourth-year engineering student from Nizamabad.
Meanwhile, the Telangana High Court, in its interim order, permitted 15 colleges that approached it to collect tuition fees directly from students from the 2026-27 academic year, including those already admitted in previous years.
The order marks a significant development for the private higher education sector, though the relief currently applies only to the petitioning institutions.
Members of the Federation of Associations of Telangana Higher Institutions (FATHI) said more professional colleges are preparing to move the court from Monday, even as they plan to meet the state government next week, signalling that the issue is far from settled.
This story has been written by Meghna Nath.
