Financing crisis pushes students to life in the slums
What you need to know:
The deepening financing crisis is underlined by the fact that more than one third of the freshmen who were to start their degree programmes in September have not formally reported because they have no money to pay the required fees.
Rapid expansion and a deepening financing crisis at the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) has pushed thousands of university students into a life of squalor and destitution.
The crisis is now threatening to dilute the quality of graduates from the institutions of higher learning.
Even as Kenya proudly displays the large number of its citizens now getting university education – currently admitting more than 40,000 freshmen a year – intense economic pressure is driving students into life in the slums, starvation and criminal activity with little time to concentrate on studies.
Over the past month, the Business Daily has visited and spoken to scores of university students living in cramped, stuffy, poorly lit rooms in Nairobi’s low income neighbourhoods of Makongeni, Kaloleni, Mbotela and Land Mawe.
