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Vice-Chancellor William Ruto has explained why students attending private universities will not receive government scholarships under the new funding model.
On Sunday, August 25, 2024, President Ruto explained that students attending private schools can only get loans and not scholarships. He elaborated that many private universities receive funds from companies and other sponsors to support their operations and programs. In contrast, public universities are completely dependent on government funding.
Ruto noted that previous attempts to provide scholarships to students at private universities had led to a serious accumulation of debt.
“We are unable to offer scholarships in this model because past efforts to do so led to severe financial difficulties for private universities. We ended up with a debt of about Ksh51 billion,” He said.
“One private university even had to close. It’s better to stick with our current plan than continue to accumulate debt.”
The new funding model allocates funds based on students’ financial need, unlike the previous differentiated unit cost model, which focused on the specific courses students choose. The new approach divides funds into five tiers, each corresponding to a family’s monthly income.
Ruto also hinted at possible changes to loan repayment schemes, arguing it was unfair to require graduates to start repaying their loans before they had a job.
“We have to address the issue of grace periods to ensure students are not obligated to start repayments before they find a job.” Ruto stressed.
But he ruled out lowering loan interest rates due to current financial constraints.
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