Why high IIM fees don't pinch

The air of expectancy in the sprawling campus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is unmistakable, despite the recent controversy over fees being slashed 80 per cent.

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Come March 10, top-notch corporates will descend on the country's premier business school for recruitment, and students expect them to come up with vastly improved offers over last year. "The indications are impressive," said a second-year post-graduate programme student.

If recent campus recruitments at other business schools are anything to go by, the expectations are not unreasonable. It is India Shining at business schools as well. Not only are placements happening in a flash, students are walking away with better salaries than a year ago.

The average salary offered at the department of management studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, this year was Rs 585,000 per annum, up 10 per cent from last year.

At Mumbai's S P Jain Institute, the average salary this year was around Rs 700,000 per annum, an improvement of 10-15 per cent over last year.

At the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University, the average salary this year climbed 20 per cent from Rs 680,000 last year. And at the Institute of Technology and Management, Mumbai, the average salary was Rs 300,000 this year, up 25 per cent from last year's Rs 250,000.

The campus recruitment at S P Jain was over within hours of opening on the first day. By 1315 IST, all the 127 students had offers from Wipro, IBM, TCS, Coca-Cola and Infosys, among others.

In previous years, it would take at least two days for the placements to be completed. Abbas Ali Gabula, chairperson, external relations, S P Jain, said, "The institute required only 43 companies, of the 68 that made pre-placement presentations, to place the entire batch of 127, compared with 62 last year."

"Barring a few who have not accepted any offer in the hope of a spillover from the IIMs, our placement programme was completed in half the time taken last year," R S Maker, director of the Institute of Technology and Management, Mumbai, told Business Standard, adding, "On average, there were 2-3 offers per student."

At the department of management studies, IIT-Delhi, the entire crop of 54 students got placed on the first day of the Placement Week in companies like McKinsey, GE, Maruti Udyog and Accenture. With 65 jobs offered by these companies, each student had 1.2 jobs in hand.

Explaining the rush at business schools, Mercer HR Consulting (India) Pvt Ltd country head R Sankar said companies were undertaking a number of initiatives that had been put on hold earlier, resulting in an increased demand for management graduates. "There is tremendous confidence that there will be sustained growth for 12-18 months," he said.

The rush at the top business schools is expected to raise the level of offers in the second- and third -rung institutes as well. There are over 950 business schools in the country, churning out over 60,000 management graduates every year.