Ruto pledges no Kenyan university, TVET or KMTC student sent home over fees from January

President William Ruto said in Kitui County on 26 October that from January 2027 no student at a university, a technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institution or the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) will be sent home over unpaid fees, the Kenyan news site Education News reported on 27 October. The legislation behind the pledge still awaits parliamentary approval.

Ruto spoke at the launch of the 55-kilometre Twimiwa-Tseikuru-Usweni Road in Mwingi North, which he described as a KSh 5 billion project. He said he had sent legislation to Parliament to set up a new legal framework for financing higher education, and that students should be able to complete their studies on academic ability and performance, not their parents' capacity to pay. How institutions will recover outstanding fees, and how uninterrupted learning will be guaranteed, remain to be settled in the legislative process.

He has made the promise before. The Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke reported that on 3 September, in Kimana, Kajiado County, Ruto said no student would be sent home over school fees from the next semester, and that the start of the free university and college education due in September had moved to around January 2027. On 21 July, at State House in Nairobi, he had said students admitted to universities and colleges would receive full government funding, and that parents could choose whether to pay.

Hours before Ruto spoke in Kimana on 3 September, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba said applications from first-time applicants to the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) and the Universities Fund would continue to be processed under the current Student-Centred Funding Model while Parliament considers the bill. Transitional arrangements to the new framework would follow once it passes, he said.

The new funding law before Parliament is the Tertiary Education, Placement and Funding Bill, 2026. The National Assembly's Departmental Committee on Education, chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly, began its review with Ogamba on 5 August. The bill would merge HELB, the Universities Fund Board and the TVET Funding Board into one Tertiary Education Funding Authority (TEFA) to handle student loans, scholarships and other support.

Under the bill, support would depend on a student's financial background, special needs, affirmative action and the cost of the chosen programme. The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) would become the national placement body for all tertiary institutions, with placement separated from funding approvals: admission would rest on merit, qualifications and programme choice, and applications for loans and scholarships would go to TEFA.

At a public participation forum at Kibabii University in Bungoma County, Melly said the committee would review the submissions before preparing its recommendations on the bills, The Standard reported on 1 October. He quoted university students as proposing that "loan repayment should not go beyond four per cent". The committee is touring the country to hear views on six education bills.

The Standard published figures on 21 July on what the current model is short of. For 2026/27, HELB estimates it needs KSh 114.36 billion to support 1,199,423 students; the approved allocation is KSh 56.71 billion, a gap of KSh 57.65 billion. HELB chief executive Geoffrey Monari gave the figures to MPs.

Budget estimates tabled in Parliament show universities need KSh 47.36 billion under the Student-Centred Funding Model. The National Treasury allocated KSh 30.8 billion, a shortfall of KSh 16.56 billion. For 2025/26, Higher Education Principal Secretary Beatrice Inyangala told the Education Committee the requirement for scholarships, capitation and loans was KSh 70.39 billion against an approved budget of KSh 41.42 billion.

Public university debt is nearly KSh 100 billion. Enrolment fell from 680,768 in 2023/24 to 547,092 in 2024/25, according to the Ministry of Education's Education Sector Report. Ruto said at State House: "We have tried the differentiated model. It did not work because it made most universities close down."