The University Funding Board (UFB) has suggested a new price structure for students who are supported by the government.
The Board’s most recent proposal would raise tuition rates for students from affluent families in order to alleviate the financing gap that colleges are experiencing.
The National Treasury and vice chancellors support UFB’s demand that funding allocations take students’ financial circumstances into account.
According to UFB, as quoted by Business Daily, “This policy brief advocates a gradual introduction of targeted free tuition to shift the burden of higher education spending to just poor and bright students.”
This policy brief suggests targeting free tuition to gradually shift the cost of higher education funding to only the most deserving and talented students, according to UFB, as quoted by Business Daily.
The government will now pay 80% of degree-related expenses under the new model, up from the current level of 48%. For a student to participate in the program, the average annual cost is KSh 28,000. The amount of tuition that wealthy students are expected to pay is more than that of students from lower-income families.
Before allocating the cash, the HELB will screen applications, barring those from affluent backgrounds. The academics gave the case of Kabarak as an illustration, where students pay KSh 175,000 per year for basic education, KSh 200,000 for secondary school, and KSh 50,000 for university when they are funded by the government.
Due to inadequate finance, Kenyan public universities are having trouble surviving. In contrast to the KSh 87.31 billion that had been budgeted, Exchequer spent KSh 47.39 billion in the fiscal year 2021–2022.
Instead of granting colleges’ requests for more money, the Treasury advised them to reconsider their tuition rates.
In the 2022–23 fiscal year, UFB predicts that the deficit would increase to KSh 96.27 billion.
