Medical & Engineering Colleges in Nepal: MBBS Fees, Seats & Pulchowk

Every year around admission season, two questions dominate Nepali search engines: which medical college should I aim for and what will MBBS cost, and which is the best engineering college and how do I get into Pulchowk. This page pulls both answers together into a single, source-cited reference covering the medical and engineering college landscape of Nepal.

The two systems are governed very differently. Medical education (MBBS, BDS and postgraduate degrees) is centrally regulated by the Medical Education Commission (MEC, Chikitsa Shiksha Aayog), which runs one common entrance exam, caps seats and fixes fee ceilings. Engineering education is more decentralised: the state-run Institute of Engineering (IOE) under Tribhuvan University (TU) sets the benchmark, while Kathmandu University (KU), Pokhara University (PU) and Purbanchal University (PoU) each run or affiliate their own engineering colleges.

Figures below are drawn from MEC, IOE/TU and cross-referenced with the University Grants Commission (UGC) registry and reputable reporting. Seat counts and fee ceilings are revised almost every academic year, so treat specific numbers as indicative of the 2080s (2023-2025 AD) and confirm the current year's figures on the official portals before you apply.

The Medical Education Commission was established in 2018 (2075 BS) and given statutory footing by the National Medical Education Act 2075. The Act was a direct response to years of agitation, led most prominently by Dr Govinda KC, against commercialisation of medical education. It centralised three things that colleges previously controlled: entrance selection, the number of seats, and the fees they could charge.

Since then, every candidate for a bachelor-level medical or dental programme must sit a single test, the Medical Education Common Entrance Examination - Bachelor Level (MECEE-BL), conducted by MEC. Admission to all colleges, government and private, is made from this common merit list; colleges can no longer run private entrance tests. The Act also caps MBBS intake at a maximum of 100 seats per college, a rule that pushed several large private colleges to reduce their previous intakes.

MEC additionally publishes annual fee ceilings that both government and private institutions must respect. For the 2081 (2024-25) academic session, the MBBS ceiling was set at approximately NPR 40,23,250 for colleges inside the Kathmandu Valley and NPR 45,95,720 for those outside it, with the BDS ceiling around NPR 20,92,290. These are maximum chargeable amounts for the full programme, payable in instalments; scholarship and subsidised seats cost far less. Always verify the current year's notice, as ceilings are revised annually.

The most sought-after seats are at government-run and autonomous health-sciences institutions, because they combine strong clinical training with heavily subsidised or scholarship fees. Their intake is small relative to demand, so cut-off ranks are extremely high.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM), whose Maharajgunj Medical Campus in Kathmandu is Nepal's oldest and best-regarded medical school, is a constituent of Tribhuvan University and offers both MBBS and BDS. B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) in Dharan and Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) in Lalitpur are autonomous deemed universities that set their own curriculum and grading. Other public academies of health sciences include the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS) at Bir Hospital, Kathmandu, which is primarily a postgraduate institution; Karnali Academy of Health Sciences (KAHS) in Jumla; and Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences (PoAHS) in Pokhara.

Per-college seat numbers move year to year and by category (full scholarship, subsidised, full-paying), so treat the figures below as recent typical intakes rather than fixed quotas. Because these institutions carry the deepest scholarship quotas, they are the primary target for top-ranking MECEE-BL candidates.

Most MBBS/BDS seats in Nepal are at private medical colleges, which are affiliated to either Tribhuvan University or Kathmandu University and now admit students only through the MECEE-BL merit list. Overall Nepal has on the order of two dozen recognised medical colleges producing roughly 2,000 or more MBBS seats nationwide; because both college recognition and per-college intake change frequently, treat the national totals as approximate.

TU-affiliated private colleges include Nepal Medical College (Jorpati, Kathmandu), Kathmandu Medical College (Sinamangal), Nepalgunj Medical College and Universal College of Medical Sciences (Bhairahawa). KU-affiliated colleges include Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences / Dhulikhel Hospital, Manipal College of Medical Sciences (Pokhara), College of Medical Sciences (Bharatpur), Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences (the military medical college, Kathmandu), Lumbini Medical College (Palpa), Nobel Medical College (Biratnagar) and Birat Medical College. Recognition status is periodically reviewed by the Nepal Medical Council and MEC, so confirm a college's current standing before enrolling.

For all of these, the fee you actually pay is bounded by the MEC ceiling for that year and location, and every seat is filled strictly by entrance rank. That combination of a common exam and a common price band is what makes Nepal's medical-admission market unusually standardised compared with many neighbouring countries.

The single most searched cost question is what MBBS actually costs in Nepal. For a full-paying seat, the answer is the MEC ceiling for that year: for 2081 that was roughly NPR 40.23 lakh inside the Kathmandu Valley and NPR 45.96 lakh outside, covering the entire five-and-a-half-year programme (four-and-a-half years of study plus a one-year internship). BDS was capped near NPR 20.9 lakh. Colleges may charge less but never more, and the amount is typically split across instalments.

Scholarship and subsidised seats change the maths dramatically. A share of seats at government and autonomous institutions such as IOM, BPKIHS and PAHS carry full or partial government scholarships, and even private colleges must reserve a quota of free (scholarship) seats allocated by merit through MEC. These scholarship seats are the most fiercely contested places in the entire admission cycle.

Because these figures are periodic, always pair a number with its year: a fee ceiling or seat count quoted without an academic year is unreliable. The durable facts are the structure - a common exam, a per-college seat cap, and location-based fee ceilings - rather than any single rupee figure.

On the engineering side, the reference point is the Institute of Engineering (IOE), the engineering wing of Tribhuvan University, formally constituted in 1972 with roots in a technical training school from the 1930s. IOE runs BE (Bachelor of Engineering) and B.Arch (Bachelor of Architecture) programmes through its constituent campuses and a network of affiliated private colleges, all admitting students via IOE's own competitive entrance examination.

IOE's central and most prestigious campus is Pulchowk Campus in Lalitpur, established in 1972. Pulchowk offers bachelor's programmes across civil, computer, mechanical, electrical, electronics and communication, aerospace and chemical engineering plus architecture, with roughly 600-plus bachelor-level seats, and it is the country's largest producer of master's and PhD engineers. Its entrance is widely regarded as one of the toughest in Nepal, with several thousand candidates competing for each intake, which is exactly why 'pulchowk campus' is such a heavily searched term.

IOE's other constituent campuses spread engineering access across the country: Thapathali Campus in Kathmandu (the oldest engineering campus, tracing to the 1960s), Purwanchal Campus in Dharan (1976), Paschimanchal Campus in Pokhara (1981) and the newer Chitwan Engineering Campus at Rampur (2019). Together the operating constituent campuses enrol on the order of 2,000 BE/B.Arch students a year; exact per-campus quotas are published in IOE's annual admission notice.

Beyond IOE's constituent campuses, TU affiliates a set of respected private engineering colleges - including Kathmandu Engineering College, Kantipur Engineering College, Khwopa College of Engineering, National College of Engineering and Sagarmatha Engineering College - which admit through the same IOE entrance and follow IOE's curriculum. Between constituent and affiliated colleges, IOE is by far the largest engineering awarding body in Nepal.

The other three universities run their own systems. Kathmandu University School of Engineering (KUSOE) at Dhulikhel, established in 1994, is a leading private-university option with departments spanning computer, civil, mechanical, electrical and electronics, chemical and geomatics engineering, and it launched Nepal's first dedicated Artificial Intelligence degrees in 2021. Pokhara University (with its own School of Engineering and affiliates such as Nepal Engineering College) and Purbanchal University affiliate additional engineering colleges across the country, each with its own entrance and fee structure.

So which is the 'best'? For undergraduate engineering, IOE Pulchowk is consistently regarded as the top choice on reputation, faculty, research and selectivity, with Thapathali and KUSOE close behind for specific disciplines. But the practical 'best' college depends on your entrance rank, the specific stream you want, location and cost, so compare the current-year seat matrix and fees on each university's official portal before deciding.