As education costs in Bengaluru continue to soar, several private schools have begun collaborating with private finance companies to offer Equated Monthly Installment (EMI) schemes for tuition fee payments. Marketed as a flexible option for parents, these schemes aim to make large lump-sum payments more manageable.
However, many of these financing plans come with steep interest rates and hidden charges. What seems like a relief at first often turns into a long-term financial burden. Several parents now find themselves trapped in debt cycles—borrowing simply to keep their children in school.
Education reform advocates and parent associations argue that such practices are symptomatic of a deeper problem: unchecked fee hikes and a lack of regulation. Rather than addressing unaffordable school fees, schools are outsourcing the problem to lenders, making families shoulder the cost with little oversight.
The absence of strong regulatory checks on both fee structures and third-party lending has left parents exposed to exploitative terms. The emotional and financial stress this creates makes access to quality education an increasingly uphill battle for middle-class households in Bengaluru.
With no cap on annual hikes and no mechanism for redressal, families are demanding more transparency and stronger government intervention in the education financing space.
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