University Students To Pay More Fees 

University Students To Pay More Fees

University students are going to pay more fees following the new proposal to hike fees.

The latest push to ease a biting cash crunch in public universities and cut reliance on the Treasury will mainly affect students from rich families.

According to the University Funding Board (UFB), the State agency that guides allocations of student funds to universities, the proposal to cut on government funding for children of the rich at universities will save universities from a perennial financial crisis.

The review will further affect government-sponsored students in private universities. These category of students receive at least Sh70,000 annually depending on the course they are pursuing irrespective of their income status.

In the current funding, the government is expected to pay 80 percent of the cost of degrees per student with the learners in public universities paying about Sh 28,000 annually.

The proposal to rewiew the funding model has been backed by the funding board.

Treasury and university vice-chancellors wants the allocations reviewed so as to reflect the students’ income status.

In recent years, Public universities have come under financial strain due to rapid expansion amid lower State funding and a sharp fall in enrolment on self-sponsored programmes.

The sharp fall of the students on self-sponsored programmes came after the government opted to fully fund students scoring the minimum C+ entry grade and above in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.

The parallel degree courses had for many years gerenated billions of shillings for the institutions because they pay the full cost of programmes that surpassed Sh 600,000 annually.