Thousands of students in public universities face financial distress due to delays in the disbursement of funds for their upkeep from the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb).
The students are in their first and second years of study and had been previously supported through the funding model that was declared unlawful by the High Court in November last year.
Whereas some students have received the money, some are still waiting, a week after HELB announced the money has been disbursed.
For the affected students, their Helb portal has displayed the status as "Disbursement in Progress" for over a week.
The students, especially from low-income backgrounds and categorised as vulnerable by the government, are struggling to stay on campus and learn. While some students received the money via mobile money transfers, those expecting disbursements through bank accounts remain stranded.
Last week the lending manager at Helb, King’ori Ndegwa confirmed that the government had released Sh7 billion and that the first and second year students will now be funded under the differentiated unit cost (DUC) model, as they await outcome of an appeal against the funding model.
“For the last two weeks, we have been trying to find the best way to make payments, and we have now decided to pay students under the old funding model,” Mr Ndegwa stated at the time.
The announcement followed a day of protests at various institutions which led by University of Nairobi students, who stormed HELB’s headquarters in Nairobi to demand the immediate release of their loans. Efforts to reach get a comment from him through text messages and phone calls were unsuccessful.
For Mary Njoki, a student at the Multimedia University of Kenya, she is required to pay over Sh60,000 before being allowed to continue with their studies notes that since she was placed in Band 5. Students under the band are considered to come from families with high income and therefore received the least government support under the model.
“This is frustrating. I haven’t even registered for the units yet. I’m expected to pay last semester’s fees based on a placement I wasn’t even informed about. Now, this semester, I need to pay Sh59,000 – but where is that money supposed to come from? I can’t rely on my mother. What’s next? No one knows. And we don’t have the money,” she said.
Helen Akoth, a student at Maseno University, said she has not received her HELB funds, leaving her reliant on her parents. Like many others, she struggles to pay for meals, rent, and stay afloat in school.
“Every day feels like a battle. We have to choose between eating, paying rent, or buying class materials. Without HELB, some of us don’t know how we’ll make it to the end of the semester,” said Ms Akoth.
The delay has forced the affected students to make unpleasant choices between food, rent, and education. Some said they are on the brink of eviction, while others survive on a single meal a day.
“My rent is overdue, my landlord has threatened to evict me, and I have nowhere else to go. How can I focus on my studies when my survival is at stake? They have not released the funds the upkeep funds, so we are just on a survival mode. This is heartbreaking, because even last semester we did not register for the units, we just did the exams,” said Martin Khaemba, a student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
