President William Ruto has pledged that every Kenyan student who qualifies for university will receive full government funding, provided Parliament approves a new higher education financing proposal currently before the House.
Speaking at State House on Tuesday, the President urged the National Assembly to speed up the approval process so that first-year university entrants joining in September could benefit from the change.
“Now we have in Parliament the final version of how we are going to make higher education universal. It will not matter a child’s background, it will matter how good they are. Going into the future, we’ve been trying to grapple with how we fund our higher education,” Dr Ruto said.
The remarks signal a departure from the funding model he introduced in 2022, which has drawn criticism from various quarters. That model, the Differentiated Unit Cost approach, promised universities 80 per cent of the funding but delivered far less in practice.
“We tried the Differentiated Unit Cost [model], it didn’t work and it made most of our universities almost close down; because while we promised 80 per cent funding, we went down to 40 per cent and most universities suffered.
“We’ve worked on what we thought was equity where we said parents will contribute a small portion and then [government] will give a small portion of loan, a small portion of scholarship; that creates equity but it’s not good enough. Now we’re moving to universal under the amendments we’ve taken to Parliament,” the President said.
Under the new arrangement, Dr Ruto said, parents who can afford to pay for their children’s education would be free to do so, while government funding would step in fully for those who could not.
“So going forward, any student- so long as they have passed their exam and are placed in a college or university- will get full funding for their higher education. It will be the choice of parents to pay, and if they don’t, we now have a model that will pay for every child. I implore Parliament to expedite amendments to the Helb Act so that beginning from September, any child who qualifies…funding does not deter them from achieving their goals,” he said.
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However, checks by the Nation established that no amendments to the Helb Act have actually been tabled in Parliament, raising questions about how soon- or whether- the plan can take effect in time for the September intake.
Prof Daniel Mugendi, chairperson of the Vice Chancellors Committee of Public Universities, confirmed that the specifics were still being worked out. “We do not have details as yet. Once they are finalised, the proposal will be brought to us for wider discussion,” he told the Nation.
Principal Secretary for Higher Education Dr Beatrice Inyangala similarly acknowledged that the proposal remains a work in progress. “We’ve to interpret and flesh out the proposal. It’s a process. We need time to work on this,” she said.
Despite the lack of finalised details, Dr Inyangala celebrated the announcement on social media, describing it as part of efforts to secure a full transition to higher learning institutions. She wrote that the President had announced a proposal to fund all students joining university in September 2026, and that, if approved through the proper channels, it would guarantee universal access to university education.
The announcement comes against a backdrop of mounting financial strain in the university sector. Pending bills owed by public universities have swelled from roughly Sh60 billion in 2022 to more than Sh85 billion currently, while students have repeatedly complained that the 2023 funding model has locked many out of their preferred courses.
The push for a new financing model dates back to May, when Dr Ruto, at the National Education Conference in Naivasha, directed Higher Education Loans Board CEO Geoffrey Monari to develop a more sustainable funding framework.
Mr Monari has since outlined plans to raise Sh500 million through a social bond, by packaging Helb’s loan book for investors in a bid to secure predictable, timely funding for university and TVET students. The plan is reportedly under discussion with the World Bank.
He noted that Helb currently disburses about Sh46 billion a year against an annual capitation of Sh41 billion, despite the fund’s capital base having grown to only Sh200 billion since 1975. About 450,000 loan beneficiaries are currently repaying their loans, generating roughly Sh700 million a month for the board.
Helb also allocates Sh237 million annually in bursaries, split between Sh137 million for university students and Sh100 million for TVET learners. Mr Monari added that while loans are available to students in private universities, scholarships remain reserved for those in public institutions.
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