MBA Fees by Budget Band: The Verified Totals (September 2026)

“What does an MBA actually cost?” has no single answer — but it has a short list of verifiable ones. This page sorts the fees we could open on official pages in September 2026 into plain budget bands, says exactly what each total bundles, and links the source next to every figure. If a school you are weighing is missing, it is because its fee is not published in a way we could verify — and that absence is itself information.

Under Rs 12 lakh: the verified budget route

The band has a new floor, and it is dramatic. UBS Panjab University, Chandigarh publishes a course fee of Rs 23,945 per annum for its flagship MBA, MBA (Human Resource) and MBA (International Business) — marked ‘un-revised [2024-25]’ on the official courses page — roughly Rs 47,890 for the full two-year degree before university charges and hostel. The same page runs its own honest price ladder: MBA (Entrepreneurship) at Rs 1,20,135 a year and MBA (Business Data Analytics) at Rs 2,00,000. The door is CAT-only on a printed 85/7.5/7.5 merit formula — profile and sources in the Chandigarh tricity guide.

CUSAT’s School of Management Studies publishes Rs 53,842 per semester all-in for general and reservation categories — Rs 35,200 tuition plus Rs 18,642 common fees, about Rs 2.15 lakh for the full two-year state-university MBA — in its official 2026 fee schedule, cross-checked to the rupee by its own 13 July 2026 vacancy-round notice. MNIT Jaipur prints Rs 50,000 tuition per semester for GEN/OBC-NCL/EWS in its AY 2026-27 PG fee PDF — roughly Rs 3.26 lakh all-in, and about Rs 1.26 lakh for SC/ST candidates, who pay no tuition. CGC University Mohali prints Rs 1,05,000 per semester — Rs 4,20,000 for the two-year MBA (Finance) — before its published CGCUET and CUET scholarship grids. Rajagiri’s MG-University MBA totals Rs 6,00,000 (Rs 4,00,000 + Rs 2,00,000), fixed by the State Fee Committee per its Mandatory Disclosure. Chandigarh University’s MBA Business Analytics (in association with IBM) runs Rs 7,58,000 across four semesters of Rs 1,89,500, with a printed CUCET grid that waives up to 100% of the semester fee at the top slab. SCMS Cochin’s PGDM runs Rs 7,95,000 across six published trimesters of Rs 1,32,500. Chitkara Business School on the Chandigarh-Patiala highway prints Rs 9,00,000 across four semesters. XIME Kochi’s residential PGDM lists Rs 9,90,000 for 2026-28. TAPMI School of Business at Manipal University Jaipur costs Rs 5,10,000 a year — Rs 10.2 lakh for the degree plus one-time charges. Every one of these sits behind a published entrance bar; the city guides for Kochi, Jaipur and Chandigarh carry the profiles and sources.

Christ University Bangalore publishes Rs 5,70,000 per year for Karnataka students and Rs 5,80,000 per year for other-state students, the same in both years — Rs 11,40,000 to Rs 11,60,000 for the complete two-year MBA, plus a non-refundable Rs 8,000 admission registration charge. The figure comes from the university’s own Fee Structure 2026 table, applies to all six MBA specialisations, and pairs with a published entrance bar (60 percentile in CAT, XAT, CMAT or ATMA, or GMAT Focus 450+). Hostel and living costs sit outside this table.

One conditional entry belongs at the top of this band: IMT Nagpur’s AICTE Tuition Fee Waiver. The institute’s standard Batch 2027-29 total is Rs 16,00,000 all-in, but its admissions page prints the payable total for a TFW student — up to 5% of approved intake under clause 6.42 of AICTE’s Approval Process Handbook — as Rs 2,89,000 including hostel, mess, books and admission fee, with Rs 12,000 a month payable for academic amenities. It is the cheapest verified residential-PGDM total we have ever opened, and it is conditional on winning the waiver; the same page’s merit scholarship (90 percentile-plus on CAT/XAT, or 700/645-plus GMAT) prints Rs 9,89,200, and every admitted woman pays Rs 12,94,600. Profile: IMT Nagpur.

Rs 15-18 lakh: the selective band

WeSchool’s official PGDM pages list tuition and other fees of Rs 7,50,000 per annum at both the Mumbai and Bengaluru campuses, marked subject to change — roughly Rs 15 lakh across two years, with hostel extra (and mandatory at Bengaluru) plus a refundable Rs 4,000 library deposit. KJ Somaiya’s specialised tracks undercut its own flagship: the MBA in Sports Management totals Rs 15,13,000 and the MBA in Marketing Communications Rs 17,12,500 for batch 2026-28, per the institute’s published fee table. Both schools publish their shortlisting bars, so this band is not a compromise on transparency.

Two IIMs now sit in this band, verified on 10 September 2026 from their own fee documents. IIM Bodh Gaya prints Rs 17,96,000 for the 2026-28 course total — Rs 8,98,000 a year with tuition, hostel and academic charges inside, plus a refundable Rs 25,000 caution and term-wise mess deposits. IIM Rohtak prints Rs 17,90,000 for Batch 17 — Rs 8,95,000 a year, with mess (Rs 48,000 a year), placement and development charges on top. Profiles: IIM Bodh Gaya, IIM Rohtak.

The IMT group’s two non-Delhi campuses now sit here with printed all-in totals, verified on 6 September 2026: IMT Nagpur publishes Rs 16,00,000 for Batch 2027-29 including hostel, mess, books and the admission fee (360 seats; the scholarship-adjusted totals above apply), and IMT Hyderabad publishes Rs 16,00,000 for Batch 2027-29 with accommodation and mess charges included. Both are residential programmes where the living cost is inside the headline number — rarer than it should be. Profiles: IMT Nagpur, IMT Hyderabad, and the three-way verified comparison in IMT Ghaziabad vs Nagpur vs Hyderabad.

Rs 20-24 lakh: the crowded middle

Five verified totals sit here, and they bundle differently. IIM Nagpur publishes Rs 21,00,000 for the 2026-28 MBA — with Rs 1,00,000 adjusted into Term I at acceptance and twenty full-tuition scholarships for the batch (profile). FLAME University Pune publishes Rs 20,95,000 for the full two-year residential MBA (Rs 10,25,000 in year one, Rs 10,70,000 in year two), lodging and boarding included. Great Lakes Chennai publishes Rs 22,50,000 for the two-year PGDM (twin AC accommodation and meals included) and Rs 23,50,000 for the one-year PGPM (single AC accommodation included). KJ Somaiya’s flagship MBA totals Rs 23,87,500 — tuition, development, examination and deposit lines, with hostel on a separate table. A FLAME-style total and a Somaiya-style total differ by more than the headline suggests, because housing moves in and out of the number.

Rs 25 lakh and above: the premium tier

MICA publishes Rs 28 lakh for its 2025-27 PGDM batch. Masters’ Union publishes a Rs 38,56,692 total programme fee for its PGP TBM — Rs 90,000 admission plus Rs 37,66,692 tuition (reprinted upward on the official page in September 2026), hostel from Rs 3,35,000 per 12 months separate — with scholarships up to 100% and no separate form; it is a private postgraduate programme, priced and judged as such, not a degree fee (profile). NMIMS Mumbai’s MBA is published at Rs 13,50,000 per annum for academic year 2026-27 — “for information only”, in the NMAT 2026 handout — with the second-year fee to be intimated in the offer letter, so only half of that two-year total is official today. IIM Ahmedabad’s one-year PGPX publishes Rs 35 lakh for single accommodation (Rs 37.10 lakh for married housing) for 2026-27, a bundled fee covering tuition, books, course material and housing, excluding only the international immersion’s travel and stay. Premium band, premium transparency: every one of these is printed on an official page.

How to read any fee page

Three checks before a number enters your spreadsheet. First, the bundle: does the total include housing, meals, deposits and exam fees, or only tuition? Second, the second year: NMIMS publishes year one and defers year two to the offer letter, while KJ Somaiya, Christ, FLAME and Great Lakes print both years — a “cheaper” first year can be an unpublished second year. Third, the asterisk: WeSchool marks its fee “subject to change”, and Christ notes a nominal periodic increase may apply. Then run the payback test — the fee against the school’s own placement report, using the median where one is published. Our average-vs-median page walks through that arithmetic with audited IIM figures.

If you are weighing two specific offers, our offer-comparison worksheet turns this into a side-by-side decision. Or tell us your budget ceiling and exam position, and we will map which published fees you can actually reach this cycle — and tell you plainly if the list you brought does not fit the budget you set.