Refund students fees or face action: UGC to varsities

Universities and colleges will have to face “strict punitive action” if they do not return original documents and refund fees collected from the students who opt out from a programme after taking admission within a stipulated time-frame.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has framed rules “to penalise” such higher education institutions in view of a large number of complaints from the students and parents every year, Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters on Wednesday.

The UGC rules are applicable to all universities and colleges including technical institutions, be it private or government.

“The rules will be notified today (Wednesday). The All India Council for Technical Education will also notify the UGC rules for technical institutions,” he added.

As per the UGC rules, it will now be mandatory for the higher education institutions to return the original documents of the students when they move out from their programme to take admission in some other institution of their choice.

The institutions will have to refund entire tuition fee collected from a student if he or she applies for moving out of the institution to take admission somewhere else sixteen days before the closing date of admission announced.

However, the institution, while refunding the fees, will charge 5% of the total fees from such students or a maximum Rs 5000 as processing fee.

Students will be entitled to refund of 90% of the total fee if they apply for withdrawing their admission fifteen days before the closing date of admission. Students will get 80% of the deposited fee refunded if they apply to withdraw their admission within 15 days after the closing date of admission, 50% between 15-30 days after the closing of admission.

“Fees collected will not be refunded in case a student decides to withdraw after 30 days of the formally notified last date of admission,” Javadekar said.

Institutions failing to abide by the UGC rules will attract imposition of the fine by the higher education regulator. The UGC may also consider stopping grants to such institutions or withdraw affiliation in worst cases, Javadekar said.