Blow To University Students As Ukur Cuts HELB Budget

By Lynnet Okumu

University students who depend on the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) to fund their education are in for a rough ride after Treasury CS Ukur Yatani cut the budget to the Fund as compared to the previous year.

Yatani allocated 15.8 billion shillings for HELB, a reduction of about a billion shillings from the previous year allocation. This puts HELB in a tight spot on how to take care of all the students who will apply to be sponsored.

Chief Executive Officer of HELB Charles Ringera warned that about 95000 students might miss out on loans this year due to budgetary cuts and non-performing loans.

Ringera defended the decision to reduce the budget sighting Covid 19 economy constraints and the fact that the number of students that are admitted to the universities yearly has increased subsequently increasing the number of helb applicants.

Read More: HELB Reduces Loan Offered To University Students By Ksh 8000

144,033 candidates qualified for university placement in the year 2020 and are expected to join the different universities this year. Most of these students come from a humble background and will require the HELB loan not only for their school fees but also for their survival after joining.

Previously, only the government-sponsored students were eligible for loans, now days even the self-sponsored students and those pursuing diploma courses in technical institutions are eligible to apply. This means that the number of helb applicants continues to increase every year.

In November last year, the parliamentary committee on education reached a deal to increase fees for all government-sponsored students with tuition fees increment from 16,000 to 48,000 shillings.

Florence Mutua, the National Assembly Education committee chair had projected that HELB would increase allocation per student. The irony, however, will be is the likeliness of a push on fee increment by the committee to support their operations, now that the funds for universities have been decreased.

There have been persistent cries from undergraduate students for helb to increase the number of loans they allocate to them per academic year due to the fact that life has changed; the cost of living has gone up. The pleas seem to have fallen on a rock because instead of an increment there is a huge slush which raises many questions such as does the Kenyan government really values university education.

Read More: 95,000 Students Won’t Get HELB Loans, 85,000 Put On CRB Notice