Settled right

UNLIKE THE TRADITIONAL INDIAN PRACTICE, STUDENTS TODAY ARE TAKING ON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF FUNDING THEIR OWN HIGHER EDUCATION
It's payback time of a different kind for these youngsters- young, ambitious students who move abroad for their higher studies, funded by educational loans, they are expected to pay back over a stipluated period of time, once they are employed,without passing the burden on to their parents. And the number of such students is only rising.
Take the example of BCom graduate, Arindam Saha. His cost to pursue an MSc in Management at the University of Central England was 8,000 pounds.To fund the same, he took a loan of Rs 6 lakh at an interest rate of 11.5 per cent.
”The bank gave me a up to seven years to repay the loan. You are expected to start repaying the amount a year after completing the course, or once you start earning,” elaborates Saha. Currently employed with an inte r n a t i o n a l n e w s agency,Saha repays Rs 12,000 a month, and hopes to clear his loan in five years.
Loan notwithstanding, Saha is one of many students who prefer studying abroad as the MBA programme in India is often a two-year course, (as opposed to one year in England), in addition to the valuable exposure that comes with studying abroad.
While Saha went abroad soon after completing his BSc, Harsha Vellal completed a year of work experience before leaving for foreign shores.
Following a BSc in Computer Science, Harsha worked for a year before enrolling for an MBA in Marketing at the University of Liverpool. The course fee alone stood at Rs 11 lakh, for which he took a loan to pay the entire amount. Before leaving the UK,Harsha also completed a course in interior design, and has since,established an interior design business in India. ”I'm still repaying my loan. I was given seven years for repayment, of which I have completed two years,”he says.There are others who have worked longer and saved part of the fee amount before going for higher studies in foreign universities.
Aravind Krishna did his BE, worked with Infosys and decided to then add an MBA to his portfolio. He did an 18-month MBA at NTU, Singapore and was able to fund his education by himself. On the other hand, his classmate, Gaurav Sharma, a chemistry honours student, began a 16-month MBA at NTU, Singapore after working at a pharmaceutical firm.While he paid for a part of the course fee with his savings, the availed of an educational loan of Rs 10 lakhs to finance the remaining costs. Although he was given 10 years to repay the loan,“I've already returned my entire loan amount,'”he asserts.
Evidently, a common thread tying all the above cases is the student’s pride stemming from funding his or her education, as opposed to passing the buck of funding their higher studies on to their parents.