Private university students remain temporarily excluded from Nigeria’s student loan scheme due to higher fees and limited data on financial needs. NELFUND Managing Director Akintunde Sawyerr provided the rationale during a television interview.
Okay News reports that the exclusion addresses funding constraints in the initial phase. The scheme prioritizes public institutions where financial hardship is more prevalent.
Sawyerr noted that private institutions charge significantly more. Accurate information on students’ economic capacity is also lacking.
“The private sector institutions tend to charge more. We also don’t have accurate information about the financial capacity of people,” he stated.
“We are using a little bit of a blunt instrument at the moment to say, look, people who are short of money tend to go to the public sector,” he added.
The director emphasized that the measure is not permanent. Discussions with President Tinubu support eventual inclusion for all Nigerians.
“And I think that will happen when the resources are there. I think that we will have to go back and amend the law so that all can get it,” Sawyerr said.
“The exclusion is a temporal thing in my view. I think once we’ve been able to cover those who really need it, then we will look at those,” he noted.
Sawyerr affirmed the application’s political neutrality. The portal collects no data on party affiliation, ethnicity, or region.
“It is totally agnostic. When you go to that portal, it doesn’t ask you whether you’re a member of a political party,” he explained.
“There’s absolutely no way we manage this that we know which party you belong to,” he added.
Over 1.27 million applications have been received since May 2024. Nearly 789,000 students gained approval.
NELFUND disbursed N154.37 billion by early December. This covers institutional fees and student upkeep across 262 schools.
The scheme tackles underfunding in public tertiary institutions while expanding access amid resource limits and a large youth population.
This phased approach ensures targeted support before broader coverage in Nigeria’s student financing framework.
