- Government yet to work out a fee structure for private unaided colleges
- No benchmark for quality of education
- No uniform criteria for admission, no common entrance examination
- Exorbitant fees (e.g. Rs 3.90 lakh for a 11-month diploma) put most institutions beyond the reach of a vast majority
- Very often commercial consideration, not merit, governs admissions
- Many private colleges are run by politicians or enjoy their patronage. Sharad Pawar, Vilasrao Deshmukh, C.K. Jaffer Sharief, Mallikarjuna Kharge are examples.
- Government-run institutions have not grown in the last decade or two.
- Out of TN's 231 engg. colleges, 220 are unaided. In Kerala, privatisation saw the number rise from 12 to 70 in three years.