Provider tier
Open universities
Distance and online education is their statutory purpose, not a side activity.
Disclosure. We run one of the programmes described on this site — the IICT and IIPM online MBA. It is deliberately excluded from the tiers below, which are ordered by statutory standing, something we neither control nor hold ourselves. Ours is here, labelled, so you can weigh it against everything else yourself.
An open university is established by an Act specifically to teach at a distance. It awards its own degrees, it has run ODL programmes for decades, and its fees are typically the lowest of any route. If you want a degree that is unambiguously a degree, at the lowest defensible price, this is where to look first.
What this tier means for you
- They award their own degrees — no affiliating university sits in between.
- ODL is what they were created to do, so the machinery around it is mature.
- Fees are typically the lowest available, from about ₹32,000–38,000 for a full MBA.
- Their weakness is live teaching and support, which is thin almost everywhere in this tier.
19on the register
6%of all 337
19states covered
A university degreewhat it awards
All 19from the AISHE register
U-0007Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, HyderabadTelanganaU-0131Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University, AhmedabadGujaratU-0104Indira Gandhi National Open UniversityDelhiU-1183JAGAT GURU NANAK DEV PUNJAB STATE OPEN UNIVERSITYPunjabU-1259JHARKHAND STATE OPEN UNIVERSITYJharkhandU-0228Karnataka State Open University, MysoreKarnatakaU-0054Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University, GuwahatiAssamU-0278Madhya Pradesh Bhoj Open University, BhopalMadhya PradeshU-1386Mata Tripura Sundari Open UniversityTripuraU-0071Nalanda Open University, PatnaBiharU-0578Netaji Subhash Open University, KolkataWest BengalU-0932Odisha State Open UniversityOdishaU-0094Pt. Sundarlal Sharma (Open) University, BilaspurChhattisgarhU-1130SREENARAYANAGURU OPEN UNIVERSITYKeralaU-0482Tamil Nadu Open University, ChennaiTamil NaduU-0546U.P. Rajarshi Tandon Open University, AllahabadUttar PradeshU-0623Uttarakhand Open UniversityUttarakhandU-0428Vardhman Mahaveer Open University, KotaRajasthanU-0335Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open UniversityMaharashtra
A listing is not a recommendation. These institutions appear on the AISHE register in this category. Whether a particular one is currently running an online MBA, and whether it was entitled to do so for your intake year, is something only the institution can confirm. The checks to run →
Open universities on the register, by state. Relevant only if this tier ever asks you to sit an examination in person.
The numbers
| State | Institutions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Chhattisgarh | 1 | 5.3% |
| Karnataka | 1 | 5.3% |
| Tamil Nadu | 1 | 5.3% |
| Gujarat | 1 | 5.3% |
| Bihar | 1 | 5.3% |
| Madhya Pradesh | 1 | 5.3% |
| Jharkhand | 1 | 5.3% |
| Delhi | 1 | 5.3% |
| Assam | 1 | 5.3% |
| Uttarakhand | 1 | 5.3% |
| Kerala | 1 | 5.3% |
| Telangana | 1 | 5.3% |
| Odisha | 1 | 5.3% |
| Punjab | 1 | 5.3% |
| Uttar Pradesh | 1 | 5.3% |
| West Bengal | 1 | 5.3% |
| Rajasthan | 1 | 5.3% |
| Maharashtra | 1 | 5.3% |
| Tripura | 1 | 5.3% |
19 of the 19 in this tier record a state.