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Please :
1. Don't state that in 5 years, you will get a placement that will make you pay the entire course fee in 3-2 years.
2. Don't state you will get financial aids. I have no hopes from any institutions (Harvard/MIT) that even give aids to poor. Scholarships are reserved for rich and the loop goes on.
3. Don't please say, you will get loans easily.
My question is simple:
What service are they providing so good or how do they justify charging so high in an increased batch size? Are they providing us with MIT labs/research hubs/medical equipments/tech softwares/IIT toolkits, that makes it feasible and justified to have this amount?
With increasing scale of business, the costs should reduce. Not go high. That is called economies of scale. With increased batch size and library facilities, the cost should be overall only 2-2.5 for a year max.
Why do we Indian invest in degrees in anticipation of returns? We need to pay just for the services we are being offered, not for the ROI or placements that we might achieve in future. That is dumb. What if I die after the 5 year? How will our families repay? What if I just want to learn law for 5 years and only pay that much what did deserves because I want to sit idle or do something different say Photography or cinematography after law? How will I or anyone do that when already in this "anticipation burden of ROI".
Universities including IIMs charging so high, need to realise that they need to only charge that much for the service they provide. They give us a rate card showcasing the ROI we might achieve in "future". That is basically scam, that is what Byjus Did. He showed the amount that they might achieve in future, and put that as profits. That is resolutely a trap.
Please answer this question analytically.
And speaking of "state universities", Oxford and Cambridge are public universities - as are all the good London places and other British law schools worth studying at. You know how much they make their (home/domestic/British) students pay for law degrees that are three (maximum four) years in length? They used to make them pay £9,250 (INR 925,000) per year, now they have raised it, with the government's blessing, to £9,535/year (INR 953,500). People who have done the calculations have confirmed that this tuition fee raise the British government allowed isn't enough to cover universities' needs properly, and that ideally, they should have been allowed to raise it to £12,000/year (in line with inflation) in 2025-26.
The point? A good education costs a lot. You people are so entitled, it's frankly frustrating. Most of you aren't in a position where you can't pay. If you are, the uni could help you. You're just entitled pricks who think your opportunity to receive the best legal education India has to offer - a chance many would die for - is a joke. TBH, I don't mind you wasting this opportunity, it at least reduces the competition for the genuinely hard-working, and alright, you are entitled to your opinion.
Some people (the TLC lobby) who use you as useful idiots tell you to spread a story of your VC being a Lee Kuan Yew-style autocrat? Well, here's where the guy should be autocratic - the fact he isn't being is a sign of how measured he is and how much mental stamina he has to put up with bullshit. He should just, in one fell swoop, teach you guys - all of you who just waste time complaining and bitching and not working - a lesson and shoot the fees up, for you and you only, to the amount that was recommended (but not implemented) for the British universities - meaning you would have to pay, for your legal education only, the equivalent, in Indian Rupees, of £12,000 per year.
PS: You actually wanna complain about something? Here's a tip for free. Why don't talented students in India receive meaningful support financially from the state to read for a degree at university? Why aren't taxpayer sacrifices invested into India's young people? Why don't you do street protests for that instead?
Next. We are not self-pricked individuals. IIM are not for UG. Except a few which are providing some UG programme. At masters, at least those rates are duly possible if one can do it. But not for someone with a lower middle.
The point is NLS has a total fee of 25 lakh or say 28 lakh for 5 years. That is too huge. This is an haphazard management of services for UG. Overall, 25 lakh and some institutes charging 50 lakh like Jindal. And the new IIULER claiming around 50 lakh. Why don't we understand we aren't in the UK? UK is not the economy to replicate. We are in India. 16000 whatever sterling is too high in Indian standards.
Mbbs at state clgs is 5-6k. They crack NEET.
IIT charge overall 6-7 lakh for 5 years. They crack JEE.
Law charge overall 25-30-50 lakh for 5 years. And we crack CLAT.
What's the BAR COUNCIL of India doing? Why doesn't the Supreme Court take a suo-moto of this? Why don't lawyers speak up against such injustice. These are UG programmes for some school passouts. And this is not London/Amsterdam/Madrid/Swiss.
What kind of costing are they following? Why doesn't the govt take Legal education seriously? Why doesn't the govt invest in subsidized legal education at least at state institutions such as so called NLUs?
Or are they deliberately aiming the elitist to join?
The problem is not just with NLS. But with every Law college that is permitted to charge around more than 6-7 lakh for legal education. We fairly have no VOICE that speaks against the injustice of ignorance by the system. This system doesn't care of the quality of our courtrooms, this system doesn't care if the legal mechanism is working properly or not?
If NLUs wants to expand, they must be financed from sources other than just the students. They need to justify that to the lame system: "we cannot anymore put the burden on students to pay for all the expenses" "we need some much hundred or thousand crores to expand" Because this is UG programme. What's the difference between a private institution and a state funded institution then if we have to pay nearly the same?
And for concerned with sources. It's very decent to procure them at one rate. Learn some maths buddy. One time purchase for all 300 kids isn't that expensive and yearly maintenance should not be that costly. All that you mentioned from databases are ONE TIME investment. They recur and updating might be required, which many aren't aware of.
The point of entitlement and privilege is irrelevant here. The point that NLU + Law school charge so much that technically those without entitlement and privilege leave to pursue law. And when people without privileges do, institutions don't fund and throw them under the bus even after working hard. And someone from a rich background with reservation per se gets a degree from the top institutions.
You ask what elite institutions like NLSIU or IIMs provide that enables them to justify their fee. The best that an institution can do for you is to train you into a competent and dynamic professional. On this, the record of NLSIU and older IIMs speaks for itself. Now in addition to what has already been mentioned above, also consider that if an institution wants to maintain its intellectual integrity and professional reputation, it must evolve to meet its costs on its own. The fee is an important, though not the only, source for this. If NLSIU was to be governed like JNU where the insultingly low fee has absolutely no relationship with the enormous cost of maintaining the university and providing good education, then NLSIU would become subservient to the government of the day besides being unable to expand its facilities. The kind of shoddy, partisan research that government-funded universities like JNU and even TISS are doing nowadays is partly because they are prevented from raising money on their own and are solely dependent upon the government of the day. One cannot innovate without cost. We can debate as to whether NLSIU, IIMs are taking advantage of the demand in market to overcharge students but it is unreasonable to expect them to not want to balance their budget. Comparing them with a company like Byju that actually engaged in fraud and market manipulation is totally uncalled for. As for what you want to do after receiving your degree from these institutes is really your problem. No point in blaming others for your own lack of honesty with yourself on the kind of career you one wanted to pursue.
Paying professors is expensive. Just look at how much private universities like Jindal, Shiv Nadar and BITS Law are paying to their faculty. If NLS has to recruit and retain good professors, it must pay them well.
Now it is true that 5 lakhs is prohibitive. Many will lose out on the opportunity to study at NLS simply for the lack of funds and that is unfortunate. But, it is difficult when state funding is so low. NLS is trying to attract CSR funds but NLS is no IIT that it can rake in millions.
And on the question of scholarships - all scholarships in NLS are need-based. So no, they are not going just to the rich kids.