As colleges go autonomous, Mumbai University faces revenue squeeze

traditional revenue streams are shrinking, and on multiple fronts. An increasing number of colleges affiliated with the university are going autonomous, or breaking away entirely to form cluster and private universities, cutting off the recurring affiliation and examination fees they once contributed to the university’s revenue.The enrollment at the university’s Centre for Open and Distance Learning, a low-cost revenue source, has also dropped significantly in recent years. A definitive indicator could be the number of TYBCom students, the largest cohort among all courses, appearing for the university exams over the years. There was a time when more than 80,000 students would take the university’s final-year BCom exams. University data shows that 74,863 students appeared for the final exams in 2018 alone.