Loans and Scholarships

Written on July 5th, 2018 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}

With increasing costs of education everywhere, securing other sources
to fund your educational expenses is becoming a necessity. While the
campus does provide you with ample opportunities in various fields, the
tuition fees and other requirements do come off as a burden. Keeping
this in mind, several scholarship programs were introduced by the
institute. Also, educational loans are provided by most banks. Bank
Loans, Merit-cum-need (MCN) Scholarship, Merit Scholarships, Inspire and
KVPY Scholarships are some of the ways you can avail financial support
on campus.

Bank Loans

Most people on campus take loans from public sector/government banks,
and a majority of loans for on-campus students are probably handled by
the SBI Bank that's on campus. SBI Scholar Loan
is a pretty flexible loan policy which entitles the student to avail
loan amounts up to 20 lakhs without collateral and up to 30 lakhs with
tangible collateral. Also, you're allowed to pre-pay your loan at any
given point.

The loan process can take quite a while after filling the documents
as the bank will be flooded with loan applications at the beginning of
the year. However, if you ensure that your loan gets sanctioned within
the first semester itself, the first semester fee you've already paid
can also be remitted to you by the bank.

Given below is a list of documents you'll probably need to apply for a loan.

List of Documents

The student will have to have the following documents:

Proof of Identity: PAN/Passport/Driver's License/Voter ID card/Aadhar
Proof of Residence/ Address: Recent copy of Telephone Bill/Electricity Bill/Water Bill/Aadhaar Card.
Hotel allotment slip, which is given after joining the campus
Academic Records: 10th Result,12th Result
Proof of admission: Offer Letter or Admission Letter from BITS - you'll get this once you report to campus.
Statement of cost of study - you can get this from the SWD portal
Passport-size photographs

Also, the parent will have to produce a few documents as well, as they will be the co-borrowers/guarantee for the loan:

Proof of Identity: PAN/Passport/Driver's License/Voter ID card.
Proof of Residence: Recent copy of Telephone Bill/Electricity Bill/Water Bill/Passport/ Driving License/Aadhaar
Passport-size photographs
Salary slips for the last 6 months
Form 16 of last two years
Bank account statement of the salary account (account into which salary is being deposited)

Other Loan Programmes

Many other national banks offer similar loan programs, the links of
some of which have been listed below for your reference but the amount
offered through the loans vary vastly including interest rates,
documents etc.

Private banks like ICICI and HDFC also provide scholar and
educational loans to students - it might be worth checking those out
too.

Vidya Lakshmi Portal

Most banks, including the SBI, now ask people interested in loans to
fill out the form online at the Vidya Lakshmi portal and then come to
the bank with documents for verification. As of now there 34 banks
registered to this platform. Students can browse through various schemes
and decide which one to apply to. Not all the banks will provide loans
for the complete fee that and some banks may provide till a maximum of
10 lakhs as a loan.

Scholarships at BITS

Merit Scholarship

Top 1% of students -> 80% waiver in fees
Next Top 2% students -> 40% waiver in fees

The scholarships are given on the basis of CG (cumulative grade) of
all semesters prior to that. The Merit scholarship is hard to achieve
given the competition, and CG cutoffs for this are always 9.3+. If
you're aiming for this, buckle up and try hard. You don't have to
register or apply for the merit scholarship. If you're in the top 3%,
you automatically get it.

Merit Cum Need (MCN) Scholarship

The Merit-cum-Need Scholarship or MCN is just like the merit
scholarship, but with a constraint: your annual family income should be
below a threshold, which was 8lpa last year. To be eligible for this
scholarship, you need to apply for it when the notice comes out. You'll
have to submit proofs to show that your family income is beneath the
threshold.

KVPY and Inspire

Both these Scholarships provide funding to students who have taken up
Bachelor's or Master's Degree in pure and basic sciences. So, only
students of MSc Bio, Physics, Math and Chemistry are eligible for this.

KVPY provides stipend up to 20,000 Rs a semester for the first 3 years and Rs. 28,000 a semester in the 4th and 5th years (eligibility rules).
The only drawback of KVPY scholarship is that it requires an
undertaking from the student that he/she will not avail any other loans
or scholarships which includes even MCN.

The Inspire scheme offers about 10,000 scholarships every year with
Rs.80,000/- each for students pursuing basic science degrees (meaning
only MSc Bio/Phy/Math/Chem are eligible. To get the sholarship you
either need to be:

top 1% in the 12th grade board exams
or have a JEE(A)/NEET rank less than 10,000