In a bid to boost university admission, the government has reduced tuition fees by up to 40 percent for students joining universities this year.
While announcing the 2024 KCSE placement outcomes, Education Cabinet Secretary Dr. Julius Migos Ogamba made the major cut in fees. He confirmed that the new fee structure will be in place from September.
The government did it in reaction to mounting concerns over the sky-high cost of education at the university level and the declining number of students to occupy available slots.
Statistics by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) indicate that among 965,501 KCSE students, only 310,502 were placed in universities and colleges. Over 650,000 students were left without placement despite having space for 983,137 students in the existing institutions.
The government stated that it has reduced the cost of university studies by between 15% and 40%, after having refreshed its means testing model. The new model now contains a range of indicators such as how much school fees their household paid previously, how large their farm is, any medical expenses they covered, and even how frequently they had applied to the Hustler Fund.
“We are capturing all these in order to place students as close as possible to their actual financial situation,” Education Cabinet Secretary Dr. Julius Migos Ogamba explained. “The goal is to make education as affordable and accessible to all.”
Medicine, Engineering See Deepest Cuts
Medicine, which is generally seen as one of the most expensive university programs, will be subjected to the largest cuts in fees. Right now, first-year medical students studying at Kenyatta, JKUAT, Maseno, and Moi universities are charged Ksh612,000. Egerton and Masinde Muliro universities charge significantly less – Ksh337,940 and Ksh306,000 respectively – for the same course.
Dr. Ogamba clarified that the hardest hit by the reforms will be those with the highest fee. “We are harmonizing tuition costs across programmes, especially those that have historically been unaffordable,” he further explained.
The government hopes reducing tuition charges and a more distributive strategy of funding will turn around the trend towards students abandoning higher education. Despite being costly, subjects like Medicine, Engineering, Nursing, and Education continue to be in demand among students.
Other costly programs remain inaccessible for most families. Dental Surgery, for example, is Ksh612,000 at Moi University and Ksh512,050 at the University of Nairobi. Architecture courses are as much as Ksh367,200, while Pharmacy is up to Ksh492,660.
Meanwhile, Veterinary Medicine at the University of Nairobi is Ksh442,850. The same institution’s Engineering programs are among the most costly, with freshmen paying Ksh374,850.
Although the Ministry of Education has not yet given out the new fee structure, reforms are intended to widen the reach of university education and promote equality among all programs and institutions.
