OU to hike fee for foreign students

HYDERABAD: With foreign students flocking to its portals, Osmania University has hiked the tuition and registration fees for expoatriate students from the next academic year.Tuition fee for foreign students for BE/B-Tech and B.Pharma courses is set to be hiked from Rs 1.50 lakh to Rs 1.80 lakh.Registration fee too will be up from Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000.According to University Foreign Relations Office (UFRO) director C Venugopal Rao, the hike is not a money-making measure but one adjusted to increasing costs.The last such hike was hike was three years ago.Having started catering to foreign students in 2000 with less than 100 students, Osmania now has about 4,000 foreign students, making it the second most popular education destination for foreigners after Pune University.Last year, it admitted 1,100 students from abroad.This year it is expecting more than 1,200.Most of the OU foreign students come from Africa and Asia.