‘We're not ATMs': Why parents are fed up of arbitrary school fee hikes

Time of India

6 days ago

Pulled out of class by bouncers, left out of sports trials, kept out of class WhatsApp groups, taunted by teachers, and then expelled… Delhi parent Divya Mattey says his 16-year-old had to experience all this and more last month.
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All because Mattey and some other parents have teamed up against a fee hike by DPS Dwarka which, they claim, did not have the approval of the directorate of education.
'Why is the school picking on children? They should fight us in court,' says Mattey, whose son is among the 32 students struck off the rolls earlier this month. The school contends that the hike is justified in view of expenses incurred, and the names had been struck off on account of non-payment of dues. This week, the
took a stern view, demanding to know from the Delhi government and private school managements how tuition fee could be hiked if the schools were running on subsidised land given by the government.
This standoff might have happened in the Capital but the issue will resonate with parents across the country. Come April, fees go up by an estimated 10-40% every year. A recent survey of 31,000 parents by LocalCircles across 300 districts found that 44% reported a 50-80% rise in school fees over the past three years. About 8% reported hikes exceeding 80%, and an overwhelming 93% blamed these arbitrary actions on government inaction.
#dps Dwarka Denies Entry To 32 Students | School Puts Bouncers At Gate, Sends Students Back
Mridul Saxena, whose children study in a prominent school in Lucknow's Gomtinagar, says salaried folk like him struggle to keep up.
'I work as a consultant in a private company where the maximum salary hike is 6-8% every year. But the fee is being hiked by 10-15% every year. I pay a quarterly fee of around Rs 39,000 for my son who is in Class 4 and around Rs 42,000 for my daughter in Class 8,' he told TOI.
Even for a four-year-old, fees can run into lakhs.
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A Hyderabad parent pointed out that fees at a prominent Bachupally school had surged by 65% from Rs 2.3 lakh in 2023 to Rs 3.7 lakh in 2024 when his four-year-old went from nursery to lower kindergarten.
D for dilemma
Power tilts unmistakably toward institutions, while parents are left clutching invoices they don't understand and demands they cannot question.
'Your child is already enrolled. You can't just walk away.
And if you speak up, you worry they'll be targeted,' says Anubha Sahai, president of the India-Wide Parents' Association.
Those who protest have to face reprisal. Bengaluru-based Sijo Sebastian, whose child's fees increased from Rs 55,000 in 2013 to Rs 1.62 lakh in 2022, alleges that his son was expelled because he protested.
'There are different ways in which schools exploit parents. Some schools print and publish their own textbooks, which is just copy-pasting content with no authors' name, and charge double,' says Sebastian, who is secretary of the advocacy group Voice of Parent.
I
n Lucknow, parents say they are compelled to pay additional money for coffee table books, merchandise, coding classes and National Education Policy short-term courses, renovation of school buildings, bus/van charges, and mandatory preparation for common university entrance tests. Plus, parents are told to purchase books and uniforms from specific vendors designated by the institutions, who charge more.
Mahesh Mishra, national general secretary of non-profit Rashtriya Yuva Chetna Manch, says, 'We are told that if you cannot pay the fees, take admission elsewhere. How can you guarantee that the other school will not do the same thing?' He says fee hikes should be done uniformly across the state.
Sahai points out that though some states have fee regulatory committees (FRCs), these are toothless tigers that rarely convene, let alone intervene.
What makes it worse, she adds, is the absence of financial transparency. 'Schools don't audit their accounts or share expenditure details. So, when they raise fees, it's arbitrary.'
Aparajita Gautam, Delhi Parents' Association president, says of the 1,677 Delhi schools that have 18 lakh students enrolled, 335 have received subsidised land from DDA and should be audited. 'But the audits are never done in a transparent manner.
Whatever the political dispensation, there is no change in Delhi schools.'
Sample this: a TOI report found that two-thirds of Madhya Pradesh schools have failed to provide information about their fee structures or hikes to the govt for this academic year. Only 10,181 of the total 34,714 schools have disclosed this information despite complaints from parents about unjustified hikes.
P for private equity
A new model is emerging as private equity (PE) firms make deeper inroads into education.
'What we're witnessing is the slow erosion of a stable schooling experience,' says Avnita Bir, director-principal of RN Podar School, Mumbai. 'When a single owner shepherds a school through a child's academic life, it brings consistency. But when one PE firm sells to another and then to a third — each focused on valuations rather than values — where is the child in that equation?'
E for EMI
The Consumer Price Index shows that tuition fee in schools/colleges increased by 75% between April 2014-April 2025, while prices for books and journals went up by 58%.
Charges for coaching centres and private tutors also went up by 61%.
The result is what was once considered a proud investment in a child's future has, for many, begun to feel like an unrelenting debt cycle. Parents sit with calculators and loan applications not to plan vacations or car EMIs, but to chart out school fee payments.
With schools nudging parents toward lump-sum, biennial or triennial advances, often padded with rising late fees, a new kind of fix has emerged: finance firms offering EMIs for schooling.
Most schools have a formal partnership with a financing firm.
One ICSE school in Khar, Mumbai, for example, now offers three EMI options via a fintech tie-up — ranging from zero-interest seven-month plans to twelve-month loans with rates nudging 2.95%. A payment platform company says schools across the city are increasingly onboarding such services.
'Both my daughters went to an international school,' shares one father.
'But after I left my CEO job to launch my own venture, when the hike came, I just couldn't keep up. I had to take out a loan to pay their fees.'
A survey by PNB MetLife and Nielsen IQ revealed that parents are spending up to Rs 5.3 lakh a year on their children's education and extracurricular activities and are even willing to make lifestyle adjustments. The research, titled 'Financial Planning in the Era of Rising Education Cost', was conducted in April 2023.
'More than one in three parents misjudge the expense they would incur and end up overshooting their budget by 27%,' says Sameer Bansal, chief distribution officer of the insurance firm.
I for inflation
About 10-15% annual hike is inevitable due to various cost factors involved, say schools.
'There are 49 items that a school needs to pay for, and all of it under the commercial slab. This includes water, power, property tax services, insurances, taxes on school buses etc.
We do not get GST refunds,' points out D Shashi Kumar, secretary of the Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools of Karnataka.
'Additionally, infrastructure investments are also huge. Starting a skill lab will cost as much as Rs 30-40 lakh. There are fire safety, building safety, and land conversion expenses. Starting a new section costs Rs 75,000 in a CBSE school. While we condemn any hike above 15% by any school, we believe annual hikes are unavoidable,' he says.
G for Gujarat Model
Some states like Gujarat have instituted effective fee regulatory committees that take quick cognizance of parents' complaints. In the last two years, six private schools in Gujarat have been slapped with fines ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh for charging fees higher than what was fixed by the FRC.
In Delhi, the BJP government has announced that it will issue an ordinance on fee regulation that entails establishing of regulatory committees and heavy penalties for non-compliance. West Bengal is planning to introduce one as well. But parents don't think much will change.
With additional reporting from Sruthy Ullhas and Mohita Tewari