President William Ruto has announced a major overhaul of Kenya’s higher education funding model, saying all students admitted to universities and colleges will now receive 100 percent government funding regardless of their financial background.
Speaking at State House, Nairobi, on Tuesday, July 21, Ruto said the new funding model will take effect in September 2026, subject to Parliament approving the proposed amendments.
The President said the reforms are intended to make higher education universally accessible by ensuring no qualified student misses out because of financial constraints.
According to Ruto, the proposed model will cover students admitted to universities, colleges and the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC), replacing the current needs-based funding system.
” We have now worked on the university funding model—or, more broadly, the higher education funding model and going forward, any student who has passed their examinations and has been placed in a college or a university will receive full funding for their higher education,” Ruto said.
“It will be the choice of parents whether they want to contribute. If they choose not to, we now have a model through which the government will fully fund every child.”
The President said the new approach is aimed at ensuring every qualified student has equal access to higher education.
“The background of any child in Kenya will no longer matter. What will matter is how well they perform,” he said.
Ruto on Why the Government Changed the Funding Model
Ruto said the government abandoned previous university financing models after they failed to adequately support institutions and students.
He said the first attempt, the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) model, led to reduced funding for universities instead of improving the sector.
“We tried the Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC) model. I think everyone knows it did not work because it caused funding to universities to decline. When we promised 80 percent funding, it went down to about 40 percent, and most universities suffered,” he said.
The President said the government later introduced a model combining parental contributions, scholarships and student loans in an effort to make funding more equitable, but it also failed to achieve the desired results.
“We then worked on what we believed was a more equitable model, where parents would contribute a small portion, while the government would provide a combination of loans and scholarships. We thought that would create equity, but it was still not good enough,” he said.
According to Ruto, the government has now submitted amendments to Parliament to establish a new funding framework that guarantees full financial support for every student admitted to a university or college.
No Student to Miss Out Because of Fees
Ruto said the government wants to end situations where students who qualify for competitive courses are forced to abandon their dreams because they cannot raise the required household contribution.
He cited cases where students admitted to programmes such as medicine had been compelled to change courses because their families were unable to meet the cost-sharing requirements.
The new funding framework, he said, is designed to ensure that students who qualify for courses such as medicine, engineering and other professional programmes can pursue them without financial obstacles.
He urged Parliament to fast-track amendments to the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) Act to allow implementation of the new funding model from September.
Benchmarking Global Education Systems
Ruto said the decision was informed by countries that have invested heavily in higher education to drive economic growth and national development.
“We are doing this because we want to be deliberate. Countries that are ahead of us and that we benchmark against have invested in high-quality education,” he said.
If approved by Parliament, the new funding model will take effect in September 2026, with all students placed in universities and colleges eligible for full government funding irrespective of their socio-economic background.
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