In a first for NEET UG Counselling, costliest medical colleges slash MBBS fees up to 40% as seats go vacant

MBBS seats, perennially a hot commodity, are for the first time going on clearance.
With the NEET UG counselling 2026 entering its last leg, private medical colleges around the country, especially some of the most expensive ones in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as well as in Rajasthan, are offering big discounts on their MBBS spots, to the pleasant surprise of aspirants and their parents.

Reason: these institutes are staring at an unusually high quantum of vacancies, thanks to the rapid addition of newer medical colleges and seats, and skyrocketing tuition fees.

Consider this: a candidate negotiated the price of an MBBS seat at one of the many deemed-to-be universities in Tamil Nadu (TN) down from Rs 25 lakh per annum to Rs 15 lakh – a 40% concession. With hostel charges and other costs worked in, they won't be paying more than Rs 80 lakh for the four-and-a-half-year course. Originally, the total MBBS degree fees at the college was over Rs 1 crore.

NEET UG Counselling: MBBS seats at clearance rates

Medical education counsellors said that they have been fielding calls from medical colleges and their agents, desperately looking for candidates to fill their seats in the ongoing stray vacancy rounds. Social media is filled with posts -- some from the colleges themselves -- urging students to grab the unfilled spots at a bargain.

Also read NEET PG Counselling: At private medical colleges, deemed-university tag brings up to 1,471% fee hike

A relative of the candidate who is pursuing admission to the TN college told Careers360 that they were looking for spots around the country, but never expected to land one at a deemed university due to their exorbitant fees. They finalised an unexpected deal through a middleman.

"We were getting colleges in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in the range of Rs 77 lakh to 60 lakh, but we didn't want them. In fact, we were getting UP seats on merit, but they had a lot of hidden charges. The deemed universities in Maharashtra were beyond our budget. So, we decided to start exploring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the stray vacancy rounds. Everyone knows that they have good institutes in the South," he said.

The mother of another student said that they got a relatively modest discount of Rs 4.5 lakh out of Rs 94.5 lakh course fee at a self-financed college in Rajasthan in the third and the final regular round of NEET counselling.

"Many counsellors were asking us to wait till the stray vacancy round for a better price, but we didn't want to. My husband visited the college in Rajasthan and had a basic consultation with a counsellor. The college agreed to give a small concession after we requested. But we had to make an advance payment as an insurance that we would be marking the institute in our preference list," she said.

NEET UG Counselling: Fee concession in letterhead

The medical education counsellors said that such negotiations are unheard of at the UG admission level, where it's usually the seller's market. The colleges often get away with not only the sky-high declared cost but also myriad undisclosed charges and capitation fees.

Also read Maharashtra NEET UG Counselling: HC refuses to let medical college hold own MBBS rounds, says plea ‘premature’

"It's unprecedented. Earlier, there would be rare discounts given for the odd vacant seats in the sixth round of admissions, but not at this stage. Private colleges in Karnataka and Rajasthan and deemed universities in TN are all willing to bring down their prices. In Rajasthan, colleges are putting the concession agreement in writing on their letterheads. While in Karnataka and Rajasthan, candidates are required to pay the first year fee directly to the admission authority, the institutes have agreed to spread the discount over the subsequent years," said Sudha Shenoy, a Mumbai-based counsellor.

MCC NEET UG: 3,426 MBBS seats vacant

The reason for this inverted equation is amply clear. There were 3,426 MBBS seats left vacant after the third round of all-India counselling conducted by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). That's more than five times the 802 unfilled spots at this stage of admissions last year.

And while every single one of these seats was allotted in the stray vacancy round in 2025-26, as many as 837 spots were without any takers even in the stray vacancy round in this cycle. It remains to be seen if MCC will conduct another 'special' stray vacancy round for the unclaimed spots the way it did last year.

NEET UG Counselling 2026: Medical college expansion

The growing vacancies come in the backdrop of an unprecedented expansion in medical education avenues due to a sustained demand and enabling policies of the central government. The National Medical Commission (NMC) cleared as many as 13,636 new UG medical spots this year alone, over the existing 1.27 lakh seats, making it close to 11% single-year growth.

Also read NEET PG Counselling 2026 LIVE: MCC round 1 seat allotment results out; MD, MS cutoffs, reporting begins soon

There's another, and perhaps more consequential factor: the soaring fees. The bulk of the vacancies this year are concentrated in the costly deemed universities in TN and the neighbouring Puducherry.

As reported earlier by Careers360, most of them have been consistently hiking their fees, with almost 75% of colleges attached deemed universities now charging upwards of Rs 1 crore as MBBS course fees. To make matters worse, four new colleges managed to get deemed university status from the central government this year, overriding the state government's concerns. These colleges promptly raised their fees by as much as 360%.

Muzaffar Khan, a Thane (Maharashtra)-based counsellor, urged the government to put curbs on unabated growth in the private medical education space. "In the last three years, the central government has added more than 30,000 MBBS seats, 75% of which are in private colleges. Students from lower middle class and even middle class are unable to afford their fees. This was inevitable. The colleges should fix their fees according to the prevailing situation," he said.