An exasperated mother recently expressed the pain of parents with wayward sons and daughters in university. She told Milimani court magistrate Dolphina Alego that her son, a student in a private university, is incorrigible.
She was reacting to an apology by her son after he and six colleagues were acquitted of the murder of a fellow student. Technology saved them from jail after closed circuit television cameras showed the student fell from the 11th floor of a building on November 23, 2025 as she tried to jump from one balcony to another while inebriated.
Kenyan universities are increasingly becoming crime scenes, a far cry from the envisaged citadels of knowledge. In 2023 alone, 150 deaths were recorded in universities. Most of them were attributed to love triangles, crime, drug and substance abuse. The biggest culprit, however, is suicide.
Suicidal tendencies are induced by tough circumstances most students find themselves in. Unable to bear, some seek the easy way out when financial pressures exerted on them by the high cost of living and high cost of university education in Kenya become unbearable.
While university education is the threshold for white collar jobs, the path to it is littered with obstacles that detract the students’ attention in ways that some of those who manage to scrape through end up ill-equipped for the job market.
Evidently, the government has failed students and parents by pushing them to carry burdens they cannot. A paucity of residential halls within campuses has forced many students to seek accommodation in low-end estates where rent is affordable, but crime and mortality abound.
Hard economic times and meagre incomes conspire to ensure university students from humble backgrounds do not have enough money for their basic needs. Inability to meet their needs and pressure to live lives beyond their means makes it easy for young men, especially, to either succumb to depression or get into crime to fend for themselves. Others get into drugs to escape the realities of their troubled existence.
The women, ever so vulnerable in a society that treats their gender shabbily, end up doing things they wouldn’t if they had a choice. As a consequence, many have either died or given up the quest for education.
In an environment where there is no supervision, university students are having too much freedom they are ill equipped to handle. Most are barely out of adolescence and at that stage where a little money and the absence of restrictions could make them spin out of control
When freedom is not handled responsibly, it becomes a burden, which is why drug addiction, indiscipline, truancy, prostitution and crime in universities are on the rise. University authorities don’t care whether students attend classes or not, which compounds the problems in these institutions.
The government must build adequate hostels. There is enough money to do this, but it ends up in the pockets of a few. A recent report by Oxfam shows that 125 people own more wealth in Kenya than 45 million Kenyans combined. What sort of country are we building with such greed and an unequal distribution of wealth?
More than Sh2 billion is lost to corruption daily. With just a little political goodwill, this can be tamed. In a couple of months, the government can salvage enough money to build secure hostels for all students.
College students don’t need freedom. They need firm hands to put them on the straight and narrow for their own good. If adult army and police recruits live in barracks under stringent controls, rules and unquestioningly follow orders while undergoing training, why do we think university students shouldn’t be reined in?
With secure hostels, university administrations can impose hours beyond which no student would be allowed outside their hostels. A ban on alcohol, drugs and wild parties in hostels and penalties for those who break the rules can enforce discipline. There must be mandatory attendance of classes to end truancy. Students who skip classes without valid reasons should be expelled.
