The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D) on Friday said it has decided to slash the tuition fee for undergraduate foreign students by 31% and that of doctorate students by more than 96%.
The rare reversal comes against the backdrop of IIT-D seeking to attract more foreign students to increase its global standing and become a more diverse institution than an India-focused engineering and technology school.
The move assumes significance as IITs were planning to double the tuition fee for foreign students from the current $4,000 to $8,000 per annum to keep pace with the global trend of foreign students being charged three to five times domestic students.
At the doctorate level, a foreign student will now pay ₹10,000 per annum instead of little more than ₹290,000 earlier.
For undergraduate foreign nationals, the yearly tuition fee will be ₹200,000 instead of ₹290,000.
IIT-D is one of the Institutes of Eminence (IoE) shortlisted by the central government to become a world class university and improve its rankings in the global league table.
Internationalisation is a key component to improve global standings.
At present, 1% of the students at IIT-D are foreign nationals and the institution aims to take that number to 25% over a period of time. In the QS World University Ranking, IIT-D was placed at 172.