Days after the Gujarat Congress flagged a sharp fee hike at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University (BAOU), the university has clarified that fees have been increased for only 12 of the 90 courses it offers. Officials said the remaining 78 courses have not seen any increase.
In its official statement, BAOU said there is no fee hike for professional courses such as MA (Journalism and Mass Communication), MBA, MSc (Cyber Security), MSc (IT), MCA, MSc (Data Science) and PhD programmes.
10% discount for digital study material
Students who opt for soft copies of study material are eligible for a 10% fee concession, as they do not incur printing costs of ₹500 or postage charges of ₹250.
The fee revision was recommended by the Review and Fixation of Fee Committee, constituted under Section 301 of the Common University Statute-24 of the Gujarat Public University Act-23. The committee met on November 20, 2025, and unanimously approved the proposal, which was later ratified by the Board of Management.
The committee comprised university officials and external experts, including retired High Court judges, provosts from other universities, chartered accountants and a retired assistant general manager of the State Bank of India.
In its clarification, the university said that study material is delivered to students’ home addresses and that rising transportation and postage costs necessitated the fee increase.