Varsity freshmen miss Helb loans second year in a row

Varsity freshmen miss Helb loans second year in a row

Varsity freshmen miss Helb loans second year in a row

has private university students benefited helb disbursement 2016-2017 - The Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) has once again failed to disburse loans to thousands university freshmen who have sought its assistance to pay for their courses, putting them on the road to a turbulent beginning of their studies.

Helb said the freshmen, who started joining public universities last week, will have to wait till October — the earliest time money is expected to have come from the Treasury — for initial disbursement.
- helb application form for continuing students
The majority of loan applicants come from poor households and require financial support from Helb to pay for their tuition and upkeep. Most universities require full payment of a semester’s fees to admit students and delay in disbursement, therefore, risks forcing some freshmen to postpone their studies.

Helb chief executive Charles Ringera yesterday attributed the delay in disbursement to late posting of admission letters to students,  presenting a logistical nightmare to the board.

“Remember we must receive all applications to make a decision on how much will be disbursed and how many students will benefit from the loan programme,” Mr Ringera said.

Helb opened the window for loan applications towards the end of July, which will close on September 30, to be followed by processing of the requests before the cash is released to the students’ accounts. This means the students should expect a two-month delay in disbursement.

The erratic funding poses a challenge to Kenya’s quest to build a large pool of quality manpower, especially in the sciences, that is needed to get the economy on an industrialisation path by 2030.

Helb has suffered similar delays in previous years as it battles the dilemma of chasing past beneficiaries who have refused to pay their loans and the rapid growth in student population.

The agency funds needy students to the tune of between Sh35,000 and Sh50,000 per year, based on their economic background.

Of the total loan disbursed, Sh8,000 is sent directly to the university as tuition fees and the balance to the beneficiary’s bank account in two equal tranches covering the first and second semesters.

Delay in disbursement therefore means that the first-year students will have to find alternative means of paying for their tuition, accommodation and upkeep as they await government funding.

Maseno University was the first to admit freshers on August 15 while Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) opened its doors to theirs yesterday.

Kenyatta University will admit its first-year students on Monday August 29 while Moi University is expected to do so on September 5.
- helb subsequent application 2016/2017
The University of Nairobi will admit students pursuing science courses on September 5 while those in humanities and social sciences will join on January 9, 2017.

READ: HELB Sh9bn allotment falls short of student demand

READ: HELB unable to trace 25,000 defaulters
- helb portal
Mr Ringera said that the delay in sending out admission letters had slowed down the flow of loan application which by end of last week stood at a low of 35,000 against a target of 84,000 — including the 10,000 government-sponsored students to be admitted in private universities.

The 10,000 students who scored the minimum admission grade B- (56 points and above) were not considered in the initial selection. The window for applications closes on August 31.
- helb breaking news
Helb is this year expected to spend up to Sh3.1 billion on the freshmen.

About 74,389 students who sat their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams last year have been selected to join public universities, up from 67,790 last year and 53,010 in 2014.

Helb has over the years struggled to meet rising demand for loans with the steady growth in the number of university students, prompting it to lower the Sh60,000 ceiling it had set per student per year to a maximum of Sh50,000.

First-year students who joined university last September got their cash in January this year, halfway through the academic year.
- helb contacts

The Treasury has raised its annual allocation to Helb by Sh1.6 billion to Sh9.1 billion this year, compared to Sh7.5 billion last year. Mr Ringera, however, reckons that the allocation is Sh1.1 billion short of the Sh10.2 billion required to finance all continuing students and freshers, signalling that some needy students may miss out on the crucial funding.

Treasury secretary Henry Rotich, however, said that the loans agency had yet to ask his office for the cash nearly two months after the financial year began on July 1. Helb is also yet to inform the Treasury of the Sh1.1 billion shortfall, Mr Rotich said.

“They (Helb) have not come to me. They have not yet taken a single coin this financial year and have not told us they are running short of money,” Mr Rotich said.

- helb news 2016

The delay in disbursement of funds is expected to hit the freshmen particularly hard with the majority expected to miss university accommodation.

The affected students sat their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams in the last quarter of 2015 and have been admitted under an accelerated intake programme — where learners join universities nine months after leaving high school.

Deepening crisis

Previously, students waited nearly two years before going to university.
- helb facebook
The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) in 2014 replaced the Joint Admissions Board (JAB) as the entity which selects State-funded students to public universities.

The number of students in public universities has doubled in the past three years, putting a strain on Helb’s purse.

Official data shows that public universities had 427,034 students last year, up from 196,737 in 2012.

Helb has stepped up its recovery of money from past students to plug the funding gap, including amnesties and blacklisting of defaulters through credit reference bureaus.
helb disbursement loans
Auditor-General Edward Ouko recently said that Helb was unlikely to recover Sh24.6 billion from past beneficiaries, deepening the agency’s funding crisis and weakening its ability to support fresh students joining universities.

Helb loans come at an interest rate of four per cent per year and beneficiaries are expected to start servicing them a year after graduation. Failure to do so attracts a penalty of Sh5,000 every month.
 


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