Students from rich families will start paying more in university fees. This follows a push by the University Funding Board (UFB) that is seeking to limit the amount of money this category of students get.

This move will see students applying for loans from the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) get vetted before the loans are disbursed.

“This policy brief recommends a gradual introduction of targeted free tuition to shift the burden of higher education funding to only needy and bright students,” UFB says.

“Evidence has shown that a number of households in Kenya, especially those in the middle and upper income quotients, may not require any financial support to put their children through university education.”

Through this review, government-sponsored students in private universities will also be affected. Currently, these students receive at least Sh. 70,000 annually depending on the course they are pursuing irrespective of their income status.

Kabarak schools have been cited as a case example. Apparently, parents pay Sh. 175,000 annually for a pupils in Kabarak Primary School, and over Sh. 200,000 at Kabarak secondary schools and less than Sh. 50,000 at Kabarak university under government sponsorship.

“The government is expected to pay 80 percent of the cost of degrees per student under the current funding model, with the learners in public universities paying about Sh. 28,000 annually. The funding board, with the backing of the Treasury and university vice-chancellors, wants the allocations reviewed to reflect the students’ income status,” a report that appeared in a local daily said.

This comes as outgoing Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha laments that local universities are greatly underfunded.

“Universities are dying because they are underfunded and thoroughly fragmented,” says Magoha.

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At the same time, Higher Education Loans Board CEO Charles Ringera has urged the government to invest in public universities.

Ringera said this will be a solution to the institutions instead of having new ones and that the pledge to have technical universities in every region might be costly.

He recommended that the government should invest in the three available institutions instead of setting up others.

“Why are we opening more universities yet the ones we have are not fully occupied,” he said.