The Tamil Nadu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee has put out the fee structure for KG students. In this structure, the fees for kindergarten schools have been found to be higher than those for engineering courses, including those at Anna University.

A report in The New Indian Express states that a premier matriculation school in Choolaimedu, Chennai would charge Rs 31,000 for students studying in LKG for the academic year (2016-17). If you look at the MIT Campus of Anna University, the fees are just about Rs 19,000 for a regular B.E/B.Tech programme and Rs 25,000 for a self-supporting UG course.

This is not found just in Chennai, but in other cities in Tamil Nadu as well. Schools in Coimbatore, Madurai and Erode, are set to charge around Rs 25,000-Rs 40,000 for a LKG student for the coming academic year, adds the daily. As the student moves to higher classes, the fees also increase. So a Class XI and XII student would end up paying between Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 per year. Though the schools are supposed to collect what is stated by the government, many schools end up collecting more money for things like uniforms, special classes and so on.

The Supreme Court has recently allowed CBSE and ICSE schools to come up with their own fee structure and parents are worried that the fees might be exorbitant, adds the report.

The Tamil Nadu Private Schools Fee Determination Committee was established in 2010 under TN Schools (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Act, 2009 to regulate fees collected by unaided private schools. The committee could decide the fees 'based on the location, available infrastructure, expenditure on administration and maintenance and reasonable surplus required for growth of the school'.