House Moves to Halt Tertiary Institution Fee Hikes, Orders Probe into Increases Nationwide, Ehindero warns against putting Nigerian students out of education By Raymond Enoch

The House of Representatives has called for an urgent halt to rising tuition fees and other charges in public tertiary institutions across Nigeria, raising fresh concerns about the growing financial burden on students and their families.

The resolution followed a motion moved by Hon. Ifeoluwa Babajide Ehindero, who represents Akoko North-East/Akoko North-West Federal Constituency in Ondo State, during plenary on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.

The motion, which highlighted reported fee increases exceeding 100 per cent in some public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, warned that the trend could further restrict access to higher education, particularly for students from low-income households.

In presenting the motion, Ehindero drew attention to the constitutional responsibility of government to promote equal and adequate educational opportunities for Nigerians, as provided under Section 18 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

He also raised concerns about the implications of escalating institutional charges for the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), established to provide interest-free loans to eligible students and reduce financial barriers to tertiary education.

According to the lawmaker, steep increases in tuition and other institutional charges could undermine the objectives of student-financing interventions, particularly where existing loan benchmarks and institutional cost structures fail to reflect the new financial demands placed on students.

“Access to higher education should not become increasingly difficult for Nigerian students because of sudden and substantial increases in institutional charges. While we recognise the financial pressures facing our institutions, there must be a careful balance between institutional sustainability and the ability of ordinary Nigerian families to afford education,” Ehindero said.

He stressed that although public tertiary institutions faced financial pressures, decisions on tuition and other charges must be guided by transparency, adequate consultation and a realistic assessment of the economic circumstances of students and their families.

The lawmaker warned that student-loan initiatives designed to widen access to education could lose their effectiveness if institutions continued to introduce substantial fee increases without sufficient consideration for students’ ability to pay.

“Student financing initiatives such as NELFUND are intended to reduce financial barriers to education. However, when charges rise sharply without adequate consideration of students’ circumstances, the very objective of widening access to higher education may be weakened. We must ensure that students are not pushed out of school because their families can no longer meet the cost,” he said.

The House subsequently urged the Federal Government to increase financial subventions to public tertiary institutions to reduce their dependence on tuition and other student charges as sources of internally generated revenue.

It also called on the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission (NUC) to engage the management of public tertiary institutions with a view to suspending fee increases and conducting a comprehensive review of tuition structures in line with prevailing economic realities.

In a further move to establish the circumstances surrounding the increases, the House mandated its relevant committees on University Education, Federal Polytechnics and Higher Technical Education, and Federal Colleges of Education to investigate the scale and justification for recent fee hikes across public tertiary institutions.

The motion was subsequently referred to the relevant House committees for further legislative action.

Ehindero maintained that addressing the rising cost of higher education required sustained collaboration among the Federal Government, regulatory agencies, institutional managements and other stakeholders.

He emphasised that the objective was not to disregard the financial realities confronting tertiary institutions but to ensure that their funding needs did not translate into prohibitive charges capable of shutting deserving students out of the education system.

The House’s intervention comes amid growing concerns over the affordability of tertiary education and the capacity of Nigerian families to cope with rising education-related expenses.

At the heart of the motion is the challenge of reconciling the financial sustainability of public institutions with the constitutional and national imperative of expanding access to affordable and equitable education.

For students and parents already struggling with economic pressures, the outcome of the proposed review could have significant implications for their ability to sustain university, polytechnic and college of education studies without facing additional financial hardship.