Daybreak - Why IIMs are betting big on bachelor's degrees

Episode Date: July 13, 2025

Until recently, the prospect of an IIM offering a standalone undergraduate degree seemed unlikely. Traditionally known for their elite postgraduate programs, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have long been synonymous with MBA excellence. That image is now undergoing a significant shift.IIM Sirmaur is among the many who have introduced a bachelor’s program. IIM Kozhikode and IIM Sambalpur have followed suit. IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow are also preparing to launch similar courses. After decades of focusing solely on postgraduate education, the IIMs are moving into new academic territory.What’s driving this transformation? And why now? Tune in. To apply to The Ken’s podcast team, click hereDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the Sita Ramancahans, my colleague and the same. secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they managed to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into.

to the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert, as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast. or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I.M. With that, back to your episode.

Let's be honest. You don't turn down an offer from IIM, even when it is offering something that's been never offered before. And that is exactly what 18-year-old M thought. He was already four months into a respected BBA program in South India when he received an admission letter from IAM Sirmore, one of India's prestigious Indian institutes of management. But it wasn't for an MBA program.

It wasn't even for a five-year integrated program. This was something that the IIMs have never offered before, a standalone undergraduate degree in management. And it came with a hefty price tag. More than 20 lakhs for four years, which was nearly 40 times what M was paying. Still, he left his old college behind and signed up to be a part of this new experiment.

Until very recently, the idea of an IAM offering a bachelor's degree sounded strange because these are institutions known for their postgraduate education. For decades, the Leto's IAM signaled one thing, MBA excellence. But now that is starting to change. IAMSERM is not the only one. IAM Kodi Kod and IAM Sambulpur have launched their own undergrad courses. Even IAM, Bangalore and Lucknow are not far behind. The IAMs are expanding in a direction they've resisted for decades.

But why now? Why the sudden pivot towards undergraduate education? It is not just about offering more choice to students, because it is about money, pressure and the quiet restructuring of India's most elite management institutions. So what is really behind this move? And are these new courses about access? is an academic evolution or is there something else driving them? And more importantly, what does this mean for the thousands of students who now see the IAM brand as a four-year

journey, not just a two-year destination? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Daeshirma, and I don't chase the new cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philippos and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 14th of July. Until recently, IAMs had one job, produced top-tier MBAs. Some offered five-year integrated programs, students joined after school and left with a master's. But never a standalone undergrad degree.

And that changed in 2024. IAMS-Romor launched its four-year BMS. So did IAM Kodi Kod and IAM Sambalpur went even further and started offering degrees in management, public policy, data science and AI. More are jumping in. IAM Bangalore confirmed its planning an offline undergrad program soon. IIM Lucknow too is targeting courses in business analytics, data science and economics. But what sparked this sudden wave?

According to IIM officials, it was a nudge from the government. The Ministry of Education has been encouraging IAMs to broaden their scope, to stop being just elite B-schools and become. come full-fledged multidisciplinary institutions. And here is why. The National Education Policy of 2020 that aims to end fragmentation in higher education in India, which basically means specialised institutions like IAMs

must evolve to offer more kinds of courses, not just management. And that is the vision. But the reality may be more about survival than about these ideals. Between 2022 and 2025, central funding to IAMs was slashed by more than half, from 653 crores to just 250 crores. And most of that is going to the newer IAMs for infrastructure. Older IIMs are now expected to generate their own revenue. They've already been quietly hiking MBA fees, 5% per year in some cases.

At IAM-Ahm-Dabad, PGP fees have reached 26 lakh rupees. So it is no surprise that undergrad courses are price sky high too. 20 to 30 lakh rupees, not including hostel and mess charges. They are competing with elite liberal arts universities like Ashoka which charge 12 lakh rupees per year. But while Ashoka promises a holistic experience, IAMs bring something else to the table. Brand power. The question is, how much is that brand really worth at the undergrad level? And what is pushing India's top management schools to take the undergraduate plunge?

Stay tuned to find out. Hi, this is Rahil, the co-host of Daybreak. I'm quickly pausing this episode to share something very exciting with you. We are hiring. We are looking for someone in the early stages of their journalism career, maybe your fresh out of journalism school, or you've done a couple internships and projects and are eager to take on your first full-time role in audio.

I'm looking for a co-host to help launch a brand-new podcast. podcast from the Ken. This is a full-time role and you'll get to work closely with me as well as the rest of the audio team right from story pitches to interviews to shaping how the final show sounds. If you're curious, ambitious and absolutely love audio storytelling, we would love to hear from you. All the details will be in the show notes of this episode. For starters, it's not entirely voluntary. Based on the national education policy, the government wants less or niche institutions and more all-in-one universities, offering everything from arts to business to science under one roof. Until recently, IIMs were the textbook definition of specialized.

They were laser focused on postgraduate management education, but national education policy or NEP changed that direction. The policy aims for all higher education institutes to evolve into multidisciplinary setups by 2030, and that is exactly what we're seeing happen right now. And then there is another pressure point too, which I mentioned earlier, money. And then public scrutiny is also growing. In fact, in 2022, IAM ROTOC landed in trouble when India's national auditor flagged its fee structure as exorbitant. The revenue they pulled in was two to three times their actual expenditure.

It sparked questions about whether public institutions should really operate like private profit centers. And this is where the undergrad degree comes in. These new programs allow IAMs to tap into a fresh lucrative stream of income and do it early. Students pay steep tuition fee. They also pay an entrance exam fee. Each institute runs its own test and those alone generate crores in revenue. Just look at IAM indoors IPM, the five-year integrated program.

In 2024, around 30,000 students paid 4,000 each to take the NECD. entrance test. That is 12 crore rupees in application fee before a single student is even admitted. And IPMs have shown real earning potential. IAM Indore made 21 crore rupees from IPM fees last year. Not as much as their MBA program which earned them 120 crores, but a sizable chunk compared to their other offerings. Executive programs and niche postgraduate diplomas brought in far less. So it is not hard to see the appeal. student life cycles means more tuition, more test fees, and potentially even higher conversion rates into their MBA programs later. Because once you've got a student into the IAM ecosystem,

they are more likely to stay. But building these undergrad programs is not just about slapping a bachelor label on an existing course. It's taken them years. IAM Bangalore says the foundation for these changes was laid as far back as 2015 when the ministry started encouraging premier institutes to create undergraduate pathways. But back then, IAMs were just societies. They didn't even have the authority to grant degrees. But that changed in 2017 when the parliament passed the IAM Act. Suddenly, they could award degrees and the stage was set.

Even then, the process of launching a new program is long and complex. Faculty have to design the curriculum. Academic councils and boards need to review and approve it. And this is often in multiple. rounds and resources have to be allocated for teaching new disciplines. COVID, of course, slowed down everything. And then there is a matter of who is going to teach these students. MBA classrooms are full of working professionals. But undergrad students, not so much, because they are younger, less experienced and in a very different phase of their life. Teaching them means rethinking

pedagogy, case studies, and even classroom culture. IAMs are now hiring faculty from fields like psychology, philosophy and pure math to round out their offerings. Some are repurposing professors from their IPM programs. Others are building new teams from scratch. But what is still missing, though, is one big promise. Placements. Unlike their MBA programs, these new undergrad degrees aren't guaranteeing job offers, at least not yet. But that may change once the first batches graduate in 2028. Until then, students are taking a leap of fate. And that brings us back to where we started with students like M, who left a low-cost college to take a gamble on something that's never been done before.

Will it pay off? It remains to be seen. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted by Snikha Sharma and edited by Rajiv Siyah.