Mumbai: Female enrolment in engineering programmes in the state has gone up by 75% over the last four years, growing from 38,626 students in 2023-24 to 67,806 this academic year. While girls now account for a little over a third of total 1.82 lakh engineering students - a nearly 5-percentage-point increase in four years - they continue to remain underrepresented.

With over 32,126 students,

Mumbai University saw the third highest enrolment in engineering colleges affiliated to public universities in the recently concluded admission season.

Savitribai Phule Pune University led the state with double the numbers - 64,822. Pune, in fact, has become the hub for engineering aspirants, with the city alone recording an enrolment of nearly 50,000 students, the highest in the state. A few universities, including public ones, have enrolments only in a few hundreds.

Counsellor Sachin Bangad from Latur said that there is no specific reason why the city has become popular among aspirants. “For students from the rest of

Maharashtra, there is also a question of proximity. There is a perception that Pune is closer to the rest of the state. Also, Pune is more affordable than Mumbai for hostels. Institutions and infrastructure wise, even Mumbai has better colleges, but a perception has developed over the years.

Pune probably has higher number of colleges,” he said.

The highest number of the 1.82 lakh seats were filled during the institutional round, as per data shared by the state’s CET cell. It has become a trend that seats remain vacant during all the three rounds and then many seats get filled in the institutional round, said Bangad, adding that it happens almost in all admission seasons, and many students continue to block seats for all the three rounds.

Like every year, computer engineering courses saw the highest enrollment. Over 28,000 students opted for computer engineering, followed by mechanical engineering with 19,702 students and electronics and telecommunication engineering with 18,895. However, more than 50% students have secured admissions in computer and IT related courses.

Educationists claimed that seats in computer engineering seats are not increasing as there has been a saturation, but there definitely is an increase in computer related courses such as Artificial Intelligence and data sciences and machine learning. As these seats increase, the enrollment in these courses also have gone up.

Girls enrolment over last four yearsYear—------ Enrolment of Girls—---Total Enrolment—-------%2023-24—-—---38,626—----------------1.18 lakh—-----32.7

2024-25—-------52,751—---------------1.49 lakh—-----35.3

2025-26—-------62,195—----------------1.66 lakh—-----37.3

2026-27—-------67,806—----------------1.82 lakh—------37.3

University-wise distribution (Top five):Savitribai Phule Pune University —---64,822

BATU, Lonere—----------34,385

Mumbai University—------32,126

Nagpur University—------17,084

Shivaji University—-------9,921

Course-wise distribution (Top five):Computer engineering—--28,170

Mechanical engineering—-19,702

Electronics and telecommunication engineering—--18,895

Computer science and engineering—-----18,277

Information Technology—--15,219

Marginal rise in MBA enrollments, 22% seats vacantNearly 45,000 students secured admissions in MBA/MMS courses across the state - 2,111 more than the previous year. This accounts for 78% of the 56,931 seats available across 412 colleges. Compared to 2023-24, the enrollment numbers have gone up by 20%.