Thursday, October 27, 2005

Cost of IIT/Engineering education, simplified!


Kaps, on DesiPundit, said I presented a 'simple' calculation of the cost of education in an IIT/EC (with EC standing for an engineering college). The quotes around the word 'simple' (in Kaps' post) spurred me to write this, with no links and no explanations, no justifications. Let me see how well this works.

The cost of education (CE) per student per year is given by this formula:

CE = P (A + B + C + ...) / N.

There. Simple. Mathematical!

Let me quickly make it un-simple by adding what these other symbols mean, and tell you what I assumed for them in the form of this ordered set (IIT, EC).

A = annual Grants from government (1000 million, 150 million)
B = 10-year amortized cost of infrastructure (500 million, 100 million)
C = total tuition fees (100 million, 40 million) from current students
(A + B + C) = total revenues (broadly defined) (1600 million, 290 million)
P = fraction of total revenues used up for teaching (0.2 or 0.4, 0.5)
N = Number of undergraduate students (3000, 2000)

There you have it. Very simple, no?

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