Can Kenya's Underprivileged Afford University? A Broken System And Student's Struggles

• The new funding model for higher education in Kenya disadvantages underprivileged students joining universities
• Inefficient systems have caused students, such as Elijah Mande from Siaya, to suspend their studies
• Expert opinion in education: such a model might well end up crippling public universities and leaving students deep in debt

Elijah is a brilliant young man from Siaya County who dreamed of becoming an engineer. Like many poor students in Kenya, his dream soon turned sour.

Admitted to a public university, he was forced to defer his admission by one year, with the scholarship application portal system experiencing heavy downtimes and locking him and many others out.

His family could not raise the KSh 45,000 fee required. He cited the government's new Higher Education Funding (HEF) model as one reason he was disappointed.

"This model has been forced upon us by the state, and we shall reject it as it is ensnaring us with loans which we don't know how we shall pay," Elijah said.

His story is just the tip of the iceberg, revealing the cracks in the Kenyan higher education system under the new funding model.

Why did the government launch a new funding system?

The New Higher Education Funding Model, launched in May 2023, aimed to address Kenyan universities' problems.

It was meant to substitute the older model, the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC), and offer targeted scholarships and loans to students guided by their financial needs.

However, as the story of Elijah demonstrates, the reality is that Elijah's parents, depending on casual jobs, can hardly make ends meet, and they can’t raise university fees.

The application process for scholarships was bureaucratic, and with no definitive structures in place to verify the eligibility of deserving but disadvantaged students, Elijah's applications just kept getting rejected.

"This new model is not working and is instead frustrating students both in universities and TVETs by overburdening them with huge loans without any option," Elijah added.

Elijah recommends the government drop the new model and continue with the old direct capitation to universities.

Will HEF stand the test of time?

Fredrick Osano, a lecturer and education expert, has expressed his displeasure with the new financing model and its unworkable nature, saying it will not stand the test of time.

"The public universities will be overburdened by delays in funding as seen with the capitation model," said Osano. "The new model lacks practicability and may not succeed."

Osano further warned that the government's 53% university funding could be reduced to 10 or 7%.

A shortfall will be such that it cripples the public universities, whereby professors are not paid, an action that will result in dilapidated infrastructure and a consequent downhill slide in university education.

"Parents are not going to meet the high cost of education, professors are not going to be paid, and university education is going to collapse," he warned.

Similarly, as Osano points out, the new funding model is no better. It lacks clarity and proper oversight mechanisms, which could lead to unfairness and lack of integrity.

"Our present system and setup make this model highly discriminative and likely to be abused. The government is making a very serious and ambiguous program of funding university education that is student-centred, yet it has not paid JSS teachers for three months. How is this possible?" he posed.

The fate of students like Elijah had become uncertain. What was once a dream come true for higher education, full of promise and a way out of poverty, now sounded like pie in the sky.

However, the big question is: Can the underprivileged Kenyans still afford to pursue university education as envisioned?

Students appeal on new university funding model

In other news, the Ministry of Education allowed students from underprivileged backgrounds to appeal through the Higher Education Financing portal.

The chief executive officer of the Universities Fund, Godfrey Monari assured that they will review the complaints and address all grievances by students.

The Ministry of Education also sought to enlist the help of National Government Administration Officers (NGAO) to verify the authenticity of student information.

This move, aimed at ensuring fairness, sparked a mix of hope and apprehension among the students, who feared that any misstep in verification could result in a lost opportunity.

The new model divides students into five categories based on family income and other factors, such as household size and the number of children in school.

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