MADURAI: Eminent career consultant and education analyst Mr.Jayaprakash Gandhi has cautioned that preference for engineering as a career has begun to slide in Tamil Nadu compared to last year and it is clearly evident from the fill rates of seats in engineering colleges at the end of third round of TNEA 2026 academic general counselling for engineering admissions.
“The steady rise in the number of colleges filling less than 50 per cent of their seats is an alert to our entire system. Less than 50 per cent seats only got filled in 158 engineering colleges in our State, out of the total 422 colleges participating in the counselling. There are certain areas of concern which need to be addressed,” he said in his comprehensive analysis of latest admission trends witnessed for academic year 2026-27.
Mr.JP Gandhi had pointed out that the increase of colleges filling less than 50 per cent of their seats signals the unchecked expansion of software-oriented seats which is going on against the genuine student demand.
RURAL COLLEGES ARE MOST AFFECTED:
His analysis report which was sent to ‘Lotus Times’ media on September 1st 2026 says that only 112 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu filled more than 90 per cent of their seats this year as against 164 last year and more than 100 fall in semi-urban/rural areas which underlines how engineering colleges have been affected now.
A few other statistics given by him further explains the admission trend in TNEA 2026 and the message that must be understood by students and parents.
Colleges that filled 100 per cent of seats is 30 this year while it was 39 last year, colleges filling less than 10 per cent of seats is 39 this year compared to 32 last year and colleges filling more than 80 per cent of seats is 167 this year while it was 205 last year and colleges filling more than 50 per cent of seats is 264 this year as against 292 last year.
“There is a going preference for urban campuses over rural ones. We found preference for institution over course/branch. Choice-filling remains complex for rural candidates. Our observation is that sustainability of many engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu are going to face operational and financial challenges, making it difficult to sustain infrastructure and quality faculty in this AI era,” Mr.Jayaprakash Gandhi had cautioned and he also urged AICTE and Anna University to reconsider their their approval mechanism for colleges and courses.
One of the reasons for softening demand for CSE and IT branches is that students are lookng at diversification beyond pure software “and so the institutions must align their curricula with interdisciplinary domains like semiconductor, VLSI design, embedded systems EV technologies etc in preparation for campus placements by 2030.
The total number of engineering seats available for TNEA 2026 academic general counselling is 1,81,436 and total seats filled till third round is 1,27,573 and percentage of seats filled is 70.31 % while it was 75.36 last year. Total number of seats vacant at the end of academic counselling is 53,863 as compared to 42,512 last year.
