University Of Calicut, Malappuram

A regular master's student in a University of Calicut teaching department pays tuition of Rs 2,415 a year, while the LLM run by the university's own Department of Law charges Rs 40,115 every semester. Both prices sit on the same 2026-27 fee sheet. What neither buys with any certainty is a job on graduation: fewer than a third of the university's latest two-year postgraduate batch were recorded as placed, while a majority went on to further study.

Before comparing any of those numbers, pin down the institution behind them. A seat carrying the Calicut name can be in a Thenhipalam department, in a self-financing centre the university runs in another town, in one of its eleven B.Ed. centres, in Lakshadweep, or in one of several hundred affiliated colleges with fee lists of their own.

The university's brief history dates its birth to an ordinance issued on July 23, 1968, after the UGC gave concurrence on July 3, 1968. It was formally inaugurated on August 12, 1968, and the State Legislative Assembly passed the Calicut University Bill on August 29, 1968. The leaders it credits, among them C.H. Mohammed Koya, C. Achutha Menon and K.P. Kesava Menon, had judged Kerala University's centres at Cochin and Calicut inadequate for balanced growth of higher education in Kerala. As Education Minister, Koya set up a 22-member committee headed by Prof. Samuel Mathai, then Vice-Chancellor of Kerala University, and it recommended a university at Calicut that would run postgraduate departments and affiliate all colleges in the northern districts.

The first Vice-Chancellor, Dr. M.M. Ghani, took office on May 31, 1969, working from the Government Polytechnic in Kozhikode until the office moved to the campus in October 1969. The same history page records that the number of colleges under the university rose from 54 in 1968 to 70 at the end of 1975, and that the first four departments to move to the campus, by June 1970, were Botany, Chemistry, History and Zoology.

Today the university is governed by the Calicut University Act 1975, passed by the Kerala Legislative Assembly, according to its About page. That page puts the campus at Tenhipalam, 24 km south of Kozhikode city, on 520 acres, and gives the motto as "Nirmaya Karmana Sree", glossed as prosperity generated through pure actions.

How Many Departments and Colleges? The University's Own Pages Disagree

The About page lists 34 post-graduate departments and 406 affiliated colleges: 126 in Malappuram, 107 in Kozhikode, 78 each in Thrissur and Palakkad, and 17 in Wayanad. The older history page still says 25 departments and 395 colleges serving about 2.75 lakh students a year.

The newest of the three documents, the CU-CET 2026 prospectus, speaks in its preface of 38 teaching departments and more than 443 affiliated colleges.

Where a Calicut Seat Actually Sits

The campus is the teaching departments grouped into schools, from the School of Language and Literature to the School of Earth Sciences, listed on the teaching departments page. A few of those departments do not sit at Thenhipalam at all: the CU-CET prospectus places the Department of Economics and the School of Drama and Fine Arts at the Dr. John Matthai Centre in Aranattukara, Thrissur, and M.Sc. Forensic Science at the Kerala Police Academy in Thrissur.

Beyond Thenhipalam, the university runs a second tier of institutions under its own name. Its university centres page lists eleven Calicut University Teacher Education Centres (CUTECs) for the B.Ed., six Schools of Management Studies, a chain of Centres for Computer Science and Information Technology (CCSIT), physical education centres, a School of Health Science, the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), a Centre for PG Studies in Social Work at Sulthan Bathery and the Calicut University Regional Centre at Perambra. A separate Lakshadweep Cell page names university centres at Kavaratti and Kadmat and the PM Sayeed Calicut University Centre.

The AISHE higher education survey files several of these units as institutions in their own right, among them the teacher education centres at Aranattukara, Kaniyambetta and Manjeri, the Kadamat centre and the Perambra regional centre. Every NIRF figure further down comes from the return filed under the university's own code, IR-O-U-0251, with nothing from those centres added in.

Last come the colleges affiliated to Calicut. Undergraduate programmes in the autonomous colleges among them are kept out of the central allotment by a clause of the FYUG-CAP prospectus.

The university's postgraduate fee sheet holds two very different price lists: regular programmes in the teaching departments, and self-financing programmes that the university runs itself. The PG fee structure for 2026-27 prices a regular departmental master's at an admission fee of Rs 210, tuition of Rs 2,415 per annum and a Rs 350 caution deposit, with an M.Sc. lab fee of Rs 1,620 on top.

The nanoscience rows show why the headline tuition misleads. Their Rs 3,360 tuition comes with a lab fee of Rs 10,060 each semester, which makes the lab charge roughly three times the tuition, per the same fee sheet.

The self-financing list on that sheet belongs to the university too, and it is where the large numbers sit.

Radiation Physics also carries a caution deposit of Rs 18,240 and a Rs 6,690 lab fee, and its NRI seat is priced at $ 3,350 a semester, according to the same sheet. The MA Sociology on this list is a self-financing programme inside a teaching department, so a department's name on the letterhead does not by itself mean the Rs 2,415 rate applies.

The five-year integrated master's degrees in the departments have a fee sheet of their own. Their 2026-27 fee structure sets tuition at Rs 1355 for the first 3 years and Rs 2415 for the last 2 years, after an admission fee of Rs.210 and a caution deposit of Rs.685.

What the Centres and Colleges Charge Instead

A B.Ed. seat at one of the university's teacher education centres costs far more than the same degree at a government college. The B.Ed. fee structure for 2026-27 sets CUTEC tuition at Rs 52030 per year with an admission fee of Rs 2685, against Rs 2100 per year in government and aided training colleges and Rs 45000 per year for merit seats in self-financing colleges.

For undergraduates the gap runs the same way. In government and aided colleges a B.A., B.Sc. or B.Com. carries tuition of Rs 1,050 per annum, rising to Rs 3,150 for electronics, computer science and biotechnology, according to the UG fee structure. The same document prices a self-financing B.Com., BBA or BA at Rs 10,080 per semester, and the B.Sc. (IT) at the university's own CCSIT at Rs 16,050 per semester after a Rs 6,690 admission fee.

The Directorate of Admissions runs a separate portal for each kind of seat on admission.uoc.ac.in, and not one of the 2026-27 prospectuses it posts refers to CUET. Which portal applies turns on two things: the type of institution holding the seat, and whether the programme sets its own entrance test.

Undergraduate Seats Through FYUG-CAP

Registration for 2026 opened on 02.06.2026 and closed on 12.06.2026, with the trial allotment on 17.06.2026 and the first allotment on 22.06.2026, according to the detailed FYUG-CAP schedule. One application covers up to 20 programmes across colleges, centres and departments.

The FYUG-CAP prospectus charges a registration fee of Rs 520, or Rs 220 for SC/ST students, and a one-time mandatory fee made of a Rs.350 sports affiliation fee, a Rs. 105 university union fee and a Rs.155 matriculation fee once a seat is allotted. Repeat attempts are penalised: the index loses 10 marks per additional chance, to a ceiling of 25.

CAP registration is compulsory even for seats the allotment never fills: management and sports quota seats, which colleges fill themselves, and every seat in an autonomous college.

Campus Master's Seats Through CU-CET

CU-CET 2026 is the entrance route for the master's programmes in the teaching departments, the ten integrated programmes, the MCA at university centres, and the MSW and physical education degrees at both university centres and affiliated colleges, per the CU-CET notification. Registration ran from 23.03.2026 to 16.04.2026 and the notification put the fee at Rs. 680 per programme, Rs. 300 for SC/ST candidates and Rs. 920 for the LLM, with Rs.100 for each additional programme. The test itself was scheduled across three days in May.

The CU-CET 2026 prospectus groups programmes into six sessions over three days, so a candidate may choose one programme per session and a maximum of six in all. Its most useful rule sits in section 2: an entrance test is held only for programmes where applications exceed four times the sanctioned intake, and otherwise the rank list is drawn from qualifying-examination index marks. Objective papers answered on OMR sheets carry negative marks, except for B.P.Ed. and BPES.

Outside Kerala, the relevant clause is the Open All India Quota. The same prospectus creates 10% of sanctioned seats or 2 seats per teaching-department programme for natives of other states, over and above the regular seats, exempts those candidates from the entrance test and charges them general-category fees. Lakshadweep candidates sponsored by their administration are also exempted, with one extra seat in each PG programme.

Affiliated-College Master's Seats, MBA, B.Ed., B.Tech and Ph.D.

PGCAP 2026 is the allotment for postgraduate programmes without an entrance test in affiliated colleges and university centres. Its prospectus charges ₹ 520/- to register (₹ 220/- for SC/ST), ranks on a Selection Index Score, and adds 5% of that index for candidates whose qualifying degree is from the University of Calicut.

The MBA uses national or state management tests rather than a university paper. The MBA notification accepts IIM-CAT of November 2025, KMAT 2026 or CMAT 2026 and totals the selection score out of 200: 120 for the test, 30 for Plus Two marks, 25 for group discussion and 25 for interview. Plus Two marks earn nothing up to 70%, then one mark for each percentage point above it, to the 30-mark cap.

The B.Tech. is not a Directorate of Admissions programme at all. The KEAM 2026 prospectus of Kerala's Commissioner for Entrance Examinations lists the Calicut University Institute of Engineering and Technology at Tenhipalam as the self-financing college under the University of Calicut, with 270 seats across six branches.

For the Ph.D., the 2025 notification applies a 70:30 split between the entrance test and the interview, lets UGC-JRF holders in by interview alone, and requires 50% in the test to reach the interview (40% for SC/ST and 45% for SEBC and differently abled candidates). Admission is possible only against vacancies notified by the research supervisors.

Calicut does publish where admission closed, spread across its allotment pages rather than gathered in one table. The FYUG-CAP page on the admissions site links a Last Index Mark search that shows, for a chosen college, the last index mark allotted in each programme under each reservation category, from General, Ezhava and Muslim through SC, ST and EWS. The integrated PG allotment page links a previous-year index search of the same kind.

Entrance programmes get full rank lists instead. The CU-CET 2026 rank lists are posted programme by programme, with every candidate's score and category, and they show how unevenly demand falls. The LLM rank list holds 23 names for the 20 seats printed in the CU-CET prospectus, while the M.Sc. Physics list runs to rank 456 for 16 seats and the M.A. English list to rank 551 for 30.

On top of those lists, the admission documents fix minimum marks for a handful of programmes.

The MBA floor did not hold for the whole season. The final MBA rank list, dated 23.06.2026, stops at rank 140. A press release of 19.08.2026 then reopened registration for vacant MBA seats at the department, the university's SMS centres and the self-financing colleges, and let candidates who had not qualified in KMAT, CMAT or CAT apply on their degree marks.

In none of the four batches NIRF records did Calicut's own two-year master's programmes place a third of their on-time finishers, even though the count of placed graduates more than doubled between 2021-22 and 2024-25. No affiliated college's graduates are counted in these rows.

Further study absorbed more graduates than employers did, with 586 of the 977 on-time finishers of 2024-25 entered under higher studies in the NIRF 2026 return. The return does not say which programmes those students came from.

Two small streams look very different. Every one of the 14 on-time graduates of the three-year PG programmes in 2024-25 was placed, on a median of Rs 6,50,000; among 51 graduates of the three-year UG programmes, 9 found jobs at a median of Rs 2,74,000, per the same return. The five-year integrated stream has no graduating batch in any of the three years reported.

The NIRF returns give a median salary for each batch and nothing above it, so they name no recruiter and no top offer. They also carry no four-year B.Tech. rows, which leaves IET's engineering graduates outside every figure here.

The university's sanctioned intake, as filed with NIRF, is small next to its affiliating reach, and the integrated master's stream more than doubled in 2024-25.

Programme by programme, the teaching departments are mostly 20 to 30 seats each. The CU-CET 2026 prospectus prints every intake.

The centres add their own blocks of seats on top. Each of the eleven teacher education centres in the B.Ed. prospectus has 50 seats, all filled on merit, among 72 colleges offering the B.Ed. under the university. The MCA runs at 30 seats in most CCSIT centres and 60 at Aranattukara, and the Perambra regional centre carries 35 MSW and 30 MCA seats, per the CU-CET prospectus.

Nearly everyone who takes those seats is from Kerala, and most are women. In the NIRF 2026 return, outsiders number 48 from other states plus 3 from abroad on a two-year PG roll of 1970, where women hold 1505 places.

With 53.19 points, Calicut came 38th of the state public universities NIRF ranked in 2025, per the category table.

Teaching resources carry the university, and research holds it back. Its research score of 22.74 is less than a third of its teaching score of 76.06 in the same table, and it finished behind the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, which was 37th on 53.21.

Calicut has fallen in the University table every year since 2020: 54th, then 60th, 69th, 70th and 89th in 2024, going by its ranking and accreditation page, which also records 43rd among state universities in 2024. Within the state university category, then, the 2025 table moved Calicut up five places.

The main campus holds the administration, the Pareeksha Bhavan examination wing, the School of Distance Education, the UGC HRD Centre, the Educational Multimedia Research Centre, the CHMK University Library and the Central Science Block, according to the About page. The same page lists a centralised sophisticated instrumentation facility, a botanical garden, an observatory and a manuscript library, and puts the built-up area at 2,01,918.25 m2.

Sport has a long record here. The university describes its stadium as Asia's largest natural stadium, with a one kilometer circumference and seating for one lakh, alongside an international standard swimming pool, and counts four Padmasree winners and 14 Arjuna Awardees among the athletes it produced, per its About page.

The C.H. Mohammed Koya Library lists more than 1,00,000 printed books, more than 3,50,000 e-theses and more than 8000 e-journals, along with talking books for visually challenged readers, according to the library's About Us page.

Laboratories got an unusually large budget in 2024-25. Calicut put Rs 9,19,26,407 into new lab equipment that year, against Rs 72,37,208 the year before, according to its NIRF 2026 return. Over the same year, the head covering maintenance of academic infrastructure, consumables and other running expenditure fell to Rs 12,42,39,617 from Rs 52,61,81,060, and the return does not say why.

Hostel

The women's hostel houses around 1800 inmates in four blocks, Annex, Mulla, Everest and Devadharu, most of them in rooms for four, with two messes co-ordinated by the inmates themselves and Wi-Fi in every block, according to the hostel details page. The men's hostel is much smaller, with 365 rooms for 634 residents across blocks named after rivers, including the Nile international hostel with single rooms.

Room rent and mess bills are missing from the PG, UG, integrated and B.Ed. fee structures for 2026-27, so the honorary wardens' offices listed on the hostel page are where to ask about cost.

Contract teachers fill a large part of the department roster. The NIRF 2026 return names 215 teachers, 62 of them under the Adhoc / Contractual tag, and 57 of those 62 are assistant professors. Four regular professors on the same list carry leaving dates in 2025.

Sponsored research receipts leapt in a single year, from Rs 2,30,34,970 on 25 projects in 2022-23 to Rs 21,54,77,040 on 41 in 2023-24, and then held at Rs 22,76,79,536 on 40 projects in 2024-25, per the NIRF 2026 return. Consultancy added Rs 68,82,916 in 2024-25. It records 3 patents granted in 2024.

Doctoral output is rising too. Degrees awarded in 2024-25 reached 150 for full-time and 115 for part-time researchers, up from 50 and 29 in 2022-23, according to the NIRF 2026 return. The research roll behind those numbers stood at 684 full-time scholars and 104 part-time.

At a glance

Quick facts