The government has cut funding to over 12,000 university students after they failed to complete their studies within the stipulated time frame in a move that will spare taxpayers Ksh2.2 billion.
Public universities in the country embarked on weeding out students who had overstayed their course limits after the University Funding Board (UFB) raised issues over the ballooning financial constraints.
The UFB stated that the students affected by the move will now have to pay for their own tuition in the tertiary institutions.
Currently, the government pays about 80 percent of school fees for the students it sponsors to universities and colleges.
“In this financial year, we stopped catering for 12,354 university students on establishing they had overstayed at the institutions and this has saved Sh2.2 billion,” UFB Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Monari stated.
The state agency established that some students drop out of school but continue to apply for funds from the government.
The University of Nairobi on March 22, 2021, led the purge to kick out students who had overstayed their course limits.
This was inclusive of students whose studentship has expired, those on expulsion, those with unexplained failure to transit to the subsequent level, and those that interrupted their study by deferment or suspension.
Average undergraduate programs in the country take four years with an exception for engineering, architecture, and medicine which take longer.
In 2017 the government introduced the differentiated unit cost (DUC) formula.
Under the model, the government pays 80 percent of the unit cost of a course while the remaining 20 percent is catered for by the institutions.
