Kisii County Senator Richard Onyonka has weighed in on the ongoing university funding crisis, asserting that Kenya has sufficient resources to make higher education free for all students.

Speaking on a local media station on January 4, 2025, in response to protests by university students over the delayed disbursement of Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) funds, Onyonka criticized the model, stating that it was flawed from the start.

“At the time, what we were saying was that the structure and design of the funding model designed by the government was never going to work. If you don’t take care of the weakest link in any design, then that strategy and that policy are going to fail,” Onyonka remarked.

Onyonka criticized the funding approach, arguing that the education ministry receives adequate annual funding to support free higher education for all students.

“What I have been saying is very simple: the educational sector in this country has enough money to take all university students for higher learning and make sure university funding is free. We can do secondary school funding for free. We can do tertiary for free. Why? Because if we look at the amount of money the Education Ministry receives on an annual basis, we shouldn’t be having those challenges,” he added.

Delayed disbursement

The senator’s comments come as university students across Kenya face financial uncertainty following delays in the disbursement of Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) funds.

On February 3, 2025, students from various institutions, including Kenyatta University and the University of Nairobi, staged protests.

Kenyatta University students blocked sections of Thika Road, while their University of Nairobi counterparts demonstrated at the HELB offices in Anniversary Towers.

In response to the protests, HELB announced that first- and second-year university students would receive funds under the old model.

This decision was made while awaiting the outcome of an appeal regarding the December 20, 2024 ruling by Justice Chacha Mwita, which declared the new university funding model unconstitutional.

The judge determined that the model had been implemented without adequate public participation and violated students’ legitimate expectations.

In the appeal filed in January 2025, the Universities Fund and HELB acknowledged that the ruling had made it impossible for them to disburse any funds to universities or their students, especially those in their first and second years, who were the primary beneficiaries of the unconstitutional funding model.