President William Ruto made a raft of promises when campaigning for the presidency in 2022, largely targeting the education sector and seeking to revamp it.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

In July 2026, President Ruto stood before Kenyans and declared that every qualified student joining a public university or college would have their fees fully covered by the state. “Going forward, any student, so long as they have passed their examinations and they have been placed in a college or university, will get full funding for their higher education. It will be the choice for parents if they want to pay,” President Ruto said.  That announcement alone felt like a major win for families who had spent years wrestling with a confusing, income-based funding model.

President Ruto says his government will be employing 35,000 teachers each year until there is no shortage pic.twitter.com/5BAacEIHGs

However, the policy later shifted towards a loan-based model, under which students would repay the funding from their future earnings. The change marked a significant departure from the earlier announcement and raised questions among students, parents and university administrators over how the new system would work.

📌 What You Need to Know

Back in 2022, free university tuition was not part of the 455 promises as established by  Kenyans.co.ke in the broader Kenya Kwanza manifesto, but instead focused on merging the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB), the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, TVET funding, and the University Funding Board (UFB) into one body.

The coalition also pledged to make student loans interest-free and to set up a national fund specifically to cover non-tuition costs like accommodation and upkeep.

Once in office, President Ruto rolled out the Student Centred Funding Model in May 2023, replacing the old block grant system with one that funded individual students based on need.

Households were sorted into bands ranging from vulnerable to less needy, with government scholarships, HELB loans, and parental contributions all splitting the tuition bill depending on income.

Only students classified as fully vulnerable had their household fees waived in full, while everyone else was expected to chip in something out of pocket.

The banding system quickly became a source of frustration, with many middle- and low-income families wrongly placed in wealthier categories and billed for fees they could not afford. Universities, meanwhile, sank deeper into debt,  now accumulating over Ksh100 billion, with disbursement delays leaving students unable to register.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke