Islamabad: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has issued yet another warning asking parents not to pay more than Rs1.89 million as annual tuition fees to private medical and dental colleges, even as the same colleges have already collected billions of rupees from students by charging between Rs2.5 million and Rs3.5 million per seat across Pakistan.
In a fresh public notice released this week, the PMDC reminded students and parents that the maximum tuition fee for private medical and dental colleges for the 2025–26 academic session is capped at Rs1.89 million, inclusive of all ancillary charges. The regulator also warned colleges against charging any amount beyond the notified limit and advised parents to report violations through its online complaint portal.
The warning, however, comes after admissions have already begun and large sums have been collected, reinforcing criticism that the regulator’s actions remain limited to paper notices rather than enforcement on the ground.
Documents, admission letters, bank challans and fee schedules obtained from parents show private medical colleges in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and other cities demanding upfront payments ranging from Rs2.5 million to over Rs3.5 million, often with less than 24 hours to deposit the amount and explicit threats of cancelling seats if payment is delayed.
“They are issuing warnings after the money has already been taken,” said a parent in Lahore whose daughter secured admission on open merit. “What is the point of a fee cap if no one is punished for violating it?”
In some cases, colleges appear to be deliberately structuring charges to bypass the cap. One private medical college demanded Rs1.94 million as a remaining college fee after a separate university fee had already been paid, pushing the total well beyond the PMDC limit. Another issued a formal fee schedule demanding Rs2,489,107 through a bank draft at the time of admission and required students to submit original academic documents before enrolment.
Parents say the financial pressure does not end with the first year. Over the five-year MBBS or BDS programme, private colleges routinely collect an additional Rs8 lakh to Rs1 million per student under various heads such as examination fees, laboratory charges, affiliation costs, clinical training, IT services, library access and graduation expenses. These charges are loosely defined, poorly regulated and rarely audited, allowing colleges to quietly extract millions more from each student.
Critics say the PMDC’s repeated issuance of warnings, mostly through English-language newspapers with limited reach, reflects a deeper failure to regulate an increasingly powerful private medical education sector.
“The council publishes notices, but colleges continue business as usual,” said a senior academic. “Without inspections, penalties, suspension of admissions or withdrawal of recognition, these warnings are toothless.”
Several parents told this correspondent that complaints filed through the PMDC portal produced no response, while colleges continued to demand payment regardless of the official cap.
A PMDC official acknowledged that private medical colleges had previously obtained court relief against fee regulation but said the issue was now under consideration of a high-powered committee headed by the deputy prime minister.
For parents, such assurances offer little reassurance. “Every year the PMDC fixes a fee, every year colleges ignore it, and every year parents are forced to pay,” said Amina Naseem, whose daughter recently secured admission in Islamabad. “The regulator warns, the colleges collect, and the parents suffer.”
As the admission season continues, the latest PMDC warning has once again raised uncomfortable questions about whether the regulator has the will or capacity to act against private medical colleges, or whether fee regulation in Pakistan exists only on paper while billions are quietly pocketed at the expense of aspiring doctors and dentists.
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