The University of Nairobi (UoN) has increased fees for postgraduate courses and parallel degrees.
The move has been occassioned by a sharp decrease in student enrolment.
The university has increased fees for liberal arts Master’s courses like communication and MBA to more than Sh600,000 for a two-year programme from an average Sh275,000, reflecting an increase of 118 percent.
Degree courses like commerce, economics and law under the parallel plan have been increased by up to 70 percent to about Sh1 million for the four years.
The new fees will apply to new students joining the university from this month.
This is the first major fees review for postgraduate courses and parallel degrees in nearly two decades.
The university is betting the review will lift revenues from fees, which have dropped in recent years and pushed Kenya’s leading public university to a Sh1.4 billion loss in the year to June 2018.
UoN settled on the easier target of postgraduate and self-sponsored students after undergraduate students under State sponsorship opposed proposals by vice-chancellors to have tuition charges tripled to Sh48,000 annually.
“The fees are up and they will apply to new students. It’s part of the restructuring plan that will lift the university from losses,” said a top official at the institution who sought anonymity.
The two-year MBA course will now cost Sh602,000 from Sh280,000, excluding project fees while MA in Communication fees has increased to Sh655,000, up from Sh273, 000.
The increased postgraduate fees are nearly half what top private universities like Strathmore are charging. Fees for a Master’s in Commerce at Strathmore is Sh636,720 annually.
Students pursuing medicine at UoN will part with Sh3.8 million for the five-year course, up from Sh2.35 million. Law is charging Sh1, 020, 000 from Sh715, 500 while engineering courses will average Sh2.1 million from about Sh1 million.
The push for review of the fees comes when the drop in the number of students pursuing parallel degree courses whose tuition charges are based on market rates, has hurt university finances.
