A dip in GATE 2020 applications, Is IIT M Tech fee hike the reason?

The number of applications for GATE 2020 for the postgraduate level engineering entrance exams has been declined this year, said IIT Delhi in a release.

A total of 8.58 lakh applications has been received this year seeing a dip in the number when compared to last year. In 2019, a total of 9.27 lakh students applied for GATE which is 68,970 more than this year. The decrease in the number has been witnessing since 2017.

Meanwhile, the reason for the decline is attributed to the fee hike in MTech courses by the IITs. The IITs will be soon adopting a uniform fee structure for the MTech programmes offered by IITs leading to a hike of around 900 per cent in certain institutes.

However, the organizing committee chairman of GATE 2020, BR Chahar has denied IIT M.Tech Course Fee hike to be the primary reason for the decline in applications.

He said that there are several reasons for the decline in the number of applicants. He further added that the GATE 2020 exam is very competitive in nature as many PSUs shortlist and select students for entry-level roles based on their GATE exam score.