Challenges and Effects of Financing University Education in Kenya

Abstract

Financing education means meeting costs of education in all levels, capital expenditure and recurrent expenditure. Challenges and effects financing university education has taken three phases of evolutionary, revolutionally and Prorevolutionary. Evolutionary since colonial through independence up to late 1980s, marked by the president being the chancellor of all public universities and no private university existed and university education was financed by central government ‘qualified’ students and once admitted were paid a “boom”. Graduates were assured employment in either public or private sector. The effect students were no longer burdens to the parents, although dependent on central government and thought that free university education was a basic right. Second phase revolutionary since late 1980s through the early 2002,where financing university education was changed from the central government to ‘cost sharing’, parents and Higher Education Loan Board[HELB] was introduced, marked by giving charter to some private universities and later public universities introduced parallel programs. The effect was students admitted to any course so long as they had minimal entry requirement and could finance their education. The third phase is Prorevolutionary, since late 2002 through to the present, marked by some Teacher Training Colleges and constituent colleges of public and private universities given charters to be autonomous have their own chancellors, and graduation would be twice year and graduates would have many first class honors. The problem is nowadays public universities are admitting students into courses, which they did not meet the entry ‘cut off’ points and diluting or compromising the standards of the courses, if they finance their education. The objective is to study challenges and effects of financing university education and impact on the quality and standards of courses. The research will adapt diagnostic research design of the empirical data. The findings and recommendations will be vital to all stakeholders in educational sector.