The educationists revealed that around 100 colleges in state is facing problems as such. They are in distress. While some are yet managing some have already lost hopes. Hence they have resulted in ending up with sale.
With the continuous increase of engineering colleges across the country there are many colleges in each state which are finding it very difficult to fill at-least half of the total number of engineering seats. In is also revealed that some of the Arts and Science Colleges are also in the same situation.
The dealers, buyers and the owners are actually in a distressed condition. The situation is like 'Buy if you can take the risk'. The institutions quote anywhere between 50 crore and 100 crore. Though, brokers and agents advertise on behalf of the colleges up for sale, most of the owners are embarrassed about admitting it in public, fearing it will affect their credibility.
Former Anna University vice-chancellor E Balagurusamy said as many as 100 colleges, both engineering and others, were up for sale in the state. "This is because they just don't have enough students. When there are no students, where is the revenue," he asked.
Admitting there was a distress sale by colleges, Coimbatore Association of Management Colleges Affiliated under Anna University joint secretary T D Eswaramoorthy said, "With rules getting more rigid, running an institution has become tougher," he said.
Infact he also admitted that "We increased student intake from less than 50% to around 70% after we acquired the college," he said. But, with increasing costs and the struggle to fill up seats, running an institution is a challenge"
According to the educationists, the difficulty in filling up seats and the increasing operational costs are said to be the biggest challenge. Last year, with around 45,000 government quota seats in the state falling vacant, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) threatened to withdraw approval for a few engineering colleges for lack of adequate infrastructure. The council issued show-cause notices to 71 institutions. Many of the institutes had failed to fill even 50% of their seats.
Colleges in the Coimbatore region, considered a popular education hub, were affected the most. At least 10,000 of the 50,000 engineering seats here remained vacant at the end of the last admission season.