Donations for promotion of Education

Today one of my friends came back after appearing for FMS entrance examination. The good thing about FMS is that they, unlike other MBA exams, make the question paper public after the exams are over. So, instead of telling me about the test, he handed over the question paper to me. This guy had been my roommate in past. So, unless something extra-ordinary happened to him, it was clear from the question paper that this had not been a good day for him. Not even a fair day. Still, in-order to testify the obvious, I asked him, that whether the test was good or bad. As expected he replied to me that it was not good. However, the next line he told me was not one I expected. I thought that he will tell me that the test did not go as per his expectations. On the contrary he told me that he expected the test to go bad before he has given the test as he did not prepare for it.

On an average about 50,000 applicants apply to FMS and out of those only about 75 get selected. The annual fee is only about INR 10000. However, the application form costs about INR 750. Thus the revenue per year from application fee is INR 37.5 million where as the revenue generated by program fee is INR 0.75 million. As such the revenue by course fee is just about 2% of the total revenue. The rest 98% is generated by candidates who do not make it to the college. Assuming, no other grants or revenue by research, almost all of the money is coming is from the candidates who were not selected.

Thus when a candidates fails to get into a college, we may think that he/she actually makes a contribution to the college. My friend did it knowingly. He applied to the college knowing that he will not make it. Plus, he made sure, that he does not end up in the college accidently, by not studying for it. I believe, that his act is an example of selfless donation made to for promotion of education and educational institutions. Those who graduate from the college owe to him and others for the contribution.

Well done buddy! Hail philanthropy!