Student loan applications halted over lack of funds

The Higher Education Students’ Financing Board (HESFB) has revealed that it will not receive applications for study loans to the academic year 2023/24.

This was announced in a notice issued on Thursday by the HESFB executive director, Michael Wanyama.

Wanyama attributed the decision to budget shortfalls, resulting into the board failing to mobilise the funds required to sponsor new cohorts of student loans.

However, Wanyama noted that the board will continue to facilitate in-study loan scheme beneficiaries while engaging all stakeholders in resource mobilisation to resume supporting new cohorts of student loans in the academic year 2024/25.

“We are sorry for any inconveniences this may cause.” Wanyama said.

It is understood that the budget allocated to the board in the last financial year was not all released, leaving the board in arrears and debts.

Since its inception in 2014, the HESFB has been implementing the students’ loan scheme in a bid to increase access to higher education and support highly qualified Ugandans who may not afford higher education.

The board, has so far supported 13,405 beneficiaries (11,393 undergraduate degrees and 2,012 undergraduate diplomas) to study 130 undergraduate degree and 76 undergraduate diploma programmes across 22 chartered universities and 36 tertiary institutions.

However, this year, Members of Parliament called for review of the scheme following concerns that majority of scholarships, bursaries and loans go to students from well to do families, yet the essence of the support was geared towards the poor students.

There were also concerns that some districts had been left behind.

”We can make a policy reversal so that the support goes to people from Amuru, Bulambuli and Kagadi not people from around” Ignatius Wamakuyu Mudimi, the Chairperson of the Budget Committee said in January.

The loan scheme mainly targets Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) programmes, except for learners with special needs who can access study loans to pursue all programmes of their choice including all humanities programmes.

The board supports qualifying beneficiaries with tuition fees, functional fees, research fees, and appliances for students with disabilities.

A beneficiary is given a grace period of one year before the start of the repayment period.