The pricing flaw in IIM-A PG program fee

Imagine charging a lower rate when the consumer is ready to buy it at more than twice the present price!

Forget the controversy. There was absolutely no pricing/marketing logic in having charged a fee of Rs. 4.5 lakh for the IIM-A PG program when a year later at Rs. 11.50 lakh the demand's not dipped a bit! Access to funds to pursue the program, even for students from financially challenged backgrounds has never been a problem.

What now needs to be contemplated is whether the present fee is the optimal one, at which both the seller and buyer agree to the trade. After all, isn't that what business is all about, at least at a Business School? Remember Friedman?

'The discussions of the "social responsibili­ties of business" are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that "business" has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but "business" as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the doctrine of the social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it implies for whom...

I have called it a "fundamentally subversive doctrine" in a free society, and have said that in such a society, "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud. '