GOVT. vs Private College!

Govt. VS Private College

With Results approaching closer, there is just one question in everyone’s mind, which one would be the best college for me based on my expected Rank?
The ALL INDIA RANKING in AIEEE is the sole deciding factor in admission in most of the country’s engineering colleges, while on the other hand there are some college which conduct their own entrance exam like VITEEE, SRMEE, MANIPAL, so at the end everyone is equally confused and unsure about how to take the most important decision related to one’s career, be it parents or be it the students themselves.
Another doubt that majority harbours is whether to chose  a private college which has better facilities & infrastructure or a government college which has a good branding?
NITs which are centrally governed have excellent placement record BUT to get into an NIT one needs to have a maximum of AIR 30,000 in case of general category, ofcourse in last counselling you can get into one of those but the stream you get will certainly be an odd one like textile, biomedical etc.

So all those who expect their AIR to be higher than 30,000 are in a greater dilemma of which one to prefer a costly but reputed private college or an economic and Government regional college like University’s college/Institute of Engineering.
To answer this question, One can only say, that everything is subjective and opinion differs from person to person and there cannot be any generalization about it. So here I have attempted to list out some of the merits & demerits of both of the categories so that it is easier for you to decide later on.

So taking up government college, belonging to a government college myself, I am a lot closer to the reality than I was when I was in my Senior Secondary classes, Government college has a natural branding that the students intake would be having a higher cut off and thus it is harder to get admitted in a government college which is somewhat true BUT not in case of Physical Counselling i.e. if a government college conducts physical counselling that is only in the case when the seats are left vacant when students migrate to other colleges so in that case the college’s cut off drops down considerably and NO LONGER does the college have that feat to flaunt.

 

So when you get admitted in a college assuming that it will be having a better crowd, you might be wrong so do some case studies before you apply for a college and the best way is to ask someone who is already studying there.

Next thing is, check the past record and the number of years since the college started, any college around 6-7year old would usually NOT have a good placement record since the alumni column would be nearly nil, and also the companies visiting the campus always prefer old colleges which have developed a degree of credibility among the industry.

Training & Placements-T&P Cell- this one is the most important part of a college which ensures that maximum number of companies visit the campus and thereby recruit as well! So if a government college has a good T&P cell (which is rare since government employees are lazy enough to go the extra mile for the welfare of clients.) it is worth a shot, but again please verify it from some of the final year students studying there.

 

Infrastructure- Are all the machines available in the laboratories of the college? Is the university’s syllabi up to date?  Is there any sort of shortage in any particular system which is vital for all. These are some of the items in the checklist you must crossverify.

FACULTY- One of the most Important and at the same time one of the most questionable as well, one of the major shortcomings of a government college is LACK OF FACULTY or Lack of Qualified Faculty of Lack of Dedicated Faculty! There is a difference in the above 3 points, in lack of faculty, the college doesn’t have a complete faculty in the first place, lack of qualified faculty implies that the teachers are appointed on temporary contract basis or are underqualified (ex. Btech graduates teaching 1^st/2^nd or 3^rd year students) so as a result no student can grasp much from the classroom teaching + there is always a strict rule for attendance so one is compelled to attend the class and as I said that time goes down the drain since sitting in class for 6 hours a day and gaining what one could have done in 3 hours itself is a big wastage on a higher scale.

 

One thing I must tell is, that government sector companies like BHEL prefer visiting the government college campuses rather than visiting a private college due to the same mindset of students studying there would have had a higher cut off during admissions!

 

Coming to private college-
Above all the first thing to note is the COST, when compares to a government college, a private college is almost double or more expensive than it, return of investment is NOT proportional to it!

 

Another thing is that the general perception has always been that if a student could not get a good government college on the basis of his merit, then he resorts to try for admissions in private colleges(which is now breaking down due to colleges like THAPAR UNIVERSITY, LNMIT, Jaipur etc) so the peer group and the neighbour uncle and the distant aunt always raises questions like “beta, govt. College mein admission ni mila kya?”

 

Now coming to the various points discussed in the case of government colleges and analyse them in case of a private college:

Admission Cut off- Usually lower than a government college, but NOT in case of top layer colleges like THAPAR which are competent to PEC & NITs. Although in later counselling, you can get a seat in atleast one of the streams and those who already got a seat are upgraded to a better stream.

 

INFRASTRUCTURE- this is usually a lot better than government college, afterall this is one of the major points on which they market themselves. You can visit the campus and check out their laboratories to verify the same.

 

TRAINING & PLACEMENTS- A LOT BETTER usually, a determined, convincing, experienced person is appointed to deal with the HR Department of the companies and he ensures to pitch in just the right points to turn their quandary of whether to visit or not into YES. This is the sole criteria which attracts the maximum crowd toward a private college and legitimate too since we all are graduating to get a high paying job. BUT the question here is, are the facts and figures advertised right enough? As they say 2 jobs per student is our record! The reality is a topper getting 5-6 package and an average on having just 1 and the under average is NOWHERE ensured a placement, that 200 or 300% placement is NOT a guarantee that one will fetch a good job from the campus itself, so please do some background check before falling for this marketing gimmick.

Plus recently there also have been the incidents reporting that an IT company visits a campus, selects 100+ students, offers them a decent pay package and then during that 6 months of training, expels majority of them on the grounds of incompetency, now whether this is a conspiracy by the college to show sparkling placement record or what? Can’t say, but something is NOT what appears to be.

 

Faculty- In most of the private colleges, this point is always taken care of, although not every college can afford and arrange experienced faculty, but certainly most of the private colleges ensure a post graduate to teach in their colleges. But once again, ask the student studying there that whether they are taught or not, while some private colleges are stringent in keeping a check on the appointed faculty whereas some run by another individual go complacent and therefore even the top appointed faculty decides to relax and let students struggle on their own.

 

At the end of the day, it is your AIEEE Rank which decides which college you will get, the better rank the better college welcomes you to join them.

 

On campus placement with a great package is what everyone dreams of after the completion of 4 years of engineering, so it is wise to take a decision analyzing all the above parameters I discussed and thereby saving you from future regrets!

 

So the five points to research about were:

1)     T&P,

2)     Faculty,

3)     Infrastructure,

4)     Number of years since Inception,

5)     COST of graduation(especially including the hostel charges which is where the private colleges earn the most, but they tend to NOT disclose it in their advertisement stating the per annum fee is affordable, but they don’t mention that Hostel charges will be what taking your hard earned money in 1 swift motion)

 

 

All the very best and chose wisely.