Families who sank their life savings and took on debt to fund their children’s NEET dreams are paying a high price for their aspirations.
New Delhi: When Kanakpriya fell ill shortly after birth, her father, Virender Verma, rushed her to a nearby health centre in their village in Bihar’s Rohtas district. The doctor saved Kanakpriya and Verma, a mason, took a pledge beyond his means: his daughter would become a doctor, the first in their community.
Twenty-two years later, as Kanakpriya stood on the brink of fulfilling her father’s dream, the NEET paper leak scandal shattered her aspirations and devastated her parents.
The death of the NEET dream isn’t just about broken ambitions but also one that is pushing lakhs of families into poverty. Parents invest lifelong savings in tuitions, coaching institutes, and study materials, often accruing debts running into lakhs of rupees. Many modest-income families are driven into financial distress in the race for a top NEET score for medical college admissions.
Now, with the National Testing Agency (NTA)’s relentless cycle of tests and retests, these families are sinking deeper into the quicksand of old loan repayments and the burden of new ones.
To pursue this dream, Kanakpriya’s family had sacrificed other aspirations. Her father took loans, her mother sold her jewellery, and Kanakpriya dedicated four years of her life to exam preparation. Their hard work and sacrifices were supposed to pay off, but the system failed them.
For two years, Verma spent half of his monthly income of Rs 25,000 on EMIs for Kanakpriya’s coaching. He also took out EMIs to fund a tablet and other necessary study materials, which he is still paying off. Over the same period, his expenses on stationery, transportation, and books ballooned to Rs 5 lakh.
There are dozens of her textbooks stacked in the family’s half-built house in Delhi’s Najafgarh, where they migrated many years ago.
“I did not have the capability, but I had the ambition. In my village, people don’t even teach the boys. It was a big step for me to put all my life’s earnings and savings into my daughter’s NEET preparation, and now I feel cheated by the system,” Verma said.
Kanakpriya had topped every class till Class 12. Her father, who had no formal education and knew little about the medical field, would go around asking people about how to get admission to a college. He even visited clinics, posing as a patient, just to learn how doctors become doctors.
“I used to tell them that I am not here for treatment but I want to know how to become a doctor — because I want my daughter to become one,” he said.
Through his enquiries, Verma learned that his daughter had to take Physics, Chemistry, and Biology in Class 12 to appear for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test or NEET for undergraduate courses. And another harsh reality sunk in: none of it would be possible without coaching classes and their hefty fees.
“I only had Rs 25,000-30,000 in my account, but I went to the coaching institute. There were people from the bank who were financing the fees, so I could convert them into EMIs. This is what I did,” Verma said with a mix of pride and resignation.
They came tantalisingly close to success.
“I don’t have as many clothes as I have books,” Kanakpriya said, holding out her NEET scorecard. She scored 631 marks out of 720, but this ordinarily good score doesn’t cut it this year.
I feel like a loser, even after getting a decent score. I have realised that the MBBS dream is for those who are rich. I can’t afford it. But I will live with this broken part of my heart that wants to become a doctor
-Ansh Arora, NEET aspirant
The NEET UG 2024 results have been marred by unprecedented issues, including paper leaks, grace marks, an unusual number of perfect scores, and a drastic increase in the cut-off compared to the previous year. Experts have said that rank inflation is five times higher compared to last year, leaving even students with high scores out in the cold.
For many Indian families, the medical profession is a pathway to better social status and prestige. Young shoulders buckle under the weight of expectation, spending year after year in an endless grind. Parents, meanwhile, become financial contortionists, juggling loans, coaching fees, and a shoestring budget. But when the system crumbles, like this year, these families are left in ruins, with no money to secure their future, let alone their children’s.
This year, around 24 lakh students applied for NEET, up from 12 lakh just five years ago. And with the growing cutthroat competition, more and more aspirants are enrolling in coaching institutes.
“We are seeing a hike in numbers of admissions every year. Almost 90 per cent of the people who come from humble backgrounds opt for the EMI options for fee depositing,” said a faculty member of Aakash Institute, a coaching chain. The result, often, is that the debt outlives the dream.
