High staff costs complicate math for broke universities

Public universities are huge loss-making enterprises despite the high fees paid by students, a report has found.

The Commission for University Education (CUE) has unveiled its findings in a report that captures the financial health of the institutions.

“The sub-sector is not able to sustain itself and if the trend is not remedied, it may not be able to achieve its objectives as envisaged in the Universities Act,” the CUE noted.

The commission reported that 52 per cent of universities’ funding comes from their students, which includes Government fund transfers for State-sponsored learners.

In the current arrangement, the State pays Sh70,000 as capitation per student admitted under Module I while the individual is supposed to top up with Sh16,000.

Already, there are proposals to review the funding structure by raising the portion of fees paid by individual students. It has also been suggested that State fund the various academic programmes according to the cost of training rather than pay a blanket amount.

University bosses have proposed that each student pays Sh48,000, a three-fold increase from the current figure that was fixed 30 years ago.

Without the fees paid by self-sponsored students, public universities would rely solely on the Government’s capitation as the other sources, including research grants, are negligible.

Matters have been further complicated for the institutions following a sharp drop in the number of qualifying students due to major changes in the education sector, including clamping down on exam cheats.

Implementation of recent collective bargaining agreements would only worsen the situation by granting higher pay for teaching and the non-teaching staff.