Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

First-year underage medicine and engineering students from poor households may be forced to change to cheaper courses or defer their studies in public universities for at least another year to acquire legal papers to enable them to access loans to power their studies.

Under the new university funding model unveiled by President William Ruto, students in public universities will access partial education scholarships from the government through Higher Education Fund (HEF) on a needs basis and education loan.

HEF has stratified the household; from the very poorest of households to the less needy household and developed a means testing mechanism to place the scholarship application according to household equity levels.

Students from the very poor and vulnerable households would attract up to 82 per cent in scholarship funding while those from less needy backgrounds (the upper middle class) would attract the least scholarship funding of up to 38 per cent.

The tuition fees deficit of between 18 percent and 62 percent that the scholarship would not cater would be plugged by HEF loans. But for students without identity cards, the burden rest with parents or guardians.

Under this funding model, students from deprived homes would get more tuition grants while students from well off families would access more loans from the fund.

All candidates are eligible for both scholarships and loans from HEF. However, underage students can only access the scholarship, but not the loan until they acquire the national identity card. The ID card and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) pin are mandatory legal requirements to access the credit.

High-end courses, such as medicine attract a premium cost of up to Sh612,000 in public universities per year. An underage student from a deprived household, given a scholarship of 82 per cent to study medicine will require an additional Sh110,000 (18 per cent) to plug the fees deficit for the first year and raise more funds for accommodation and upkeep at the university.

The Council of Governors finance committee chair Fernandez Barasa, University of Nairobi (UoN) council chairman Prof Amukowa Anangwe and the Kenya National Parents association secretary general Eskimos Kirumbi all agree that lack of a mechanism to offer loans to underage students was a gray area in the HEF.

Prof Anangwe observes, “There must be a way to address this care notwithstanding negligible numbers of those underage candidates. So far the only clarity is that they are a minority.”

Barasa says the HEF board should address sticky issues around the model to allay fears and restore calm. “As county governments we are equally concerned. We want to see how the information sought from students would translate in to scholarship, loans and bursaries,“ he says.

Barasa says though the model promises better prospects, it had bred anxiety with equal measure. Kirumbi warned that funding deficit left by scholarships could be huge enough to deprive total orphaned students who are underage and admitted for costly courses such as medicine and engineering.

“We are lobbying the board to allow the underage learners to relax the rule and allow them to apply for loans through their parents or guardians We’ve asked that we be given full scholarships if the condition of ID in loan application cannot be varied,” he says.

Prof. Anangwe observes that all applicants would get funding based on the information they submit.

Income and poverty index

“HEF and Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) have examined and adopted the Means Testing Instrument [MTI for use to categorise learners for funding along their needs. The MTI rates the applications based on household income and poverty index. They base that on schools attended, family and traceable data in government records, including KRA. “

He explained, “MTI grades all students as needy but to various degrees. The Very poorest, the very needy, the needy and less needy.

The very poorest would get 82 per cent as scholarship, very needy at 70 per cent, needy will get 53 in scholarship while less needy will get just 38 per cent scholarship.

The fees deficit is to be paid by HEF loan and or parental/guardian.

In contrast, “Less needy students will draw 62 percent as loans and 38 percent as scholarship.
One underage student admitted at Jomo Kenyatta university for an engineering course said he is contemplating changing to a less costly course or deferring for one year in order to acquire the national ID, a prerequisite for HEF loan.

“If I get a scholarship of 80 per cent, I’ll require at least Sh200,000 to pay the remaining 30 per cent fees, accommodation and upkeep. This is too much for my mother who is a food vendor,” he told this reporter.
Kirumbi agrees that exasperation was building among underage learners.

“Yesterday, I signed as a loan guarantor of one underage student who used his parents’ ID number and can confirm it was rejected.” he said, adding that the fund board should listen and readdress the issue urgently.

Prof Anangwe urged the students to be honest and forthright while sharing the information with the HEF. “If you went to private academies in primary school and proceeded to a high-cost boarding national school, your family is able and so MTI will place you accordingly. You’ll get less scholarships and more loans,” he said.

He went on, “It’s a rope that might help you to hang. Don’t lie that your family is rich when you are very poor. The HEF will cross check and verify the information you give through a network with other state agencies, such as the Kenya Bureau of Statistics (KBS), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC), among others.”