Male students have been the biggest beneficiaries of loans advanced by the Higher Education Loans Board over the past five academic calendars, data shows.
The 2026 Economic Survey outlining the number of applicants, beneficiaries and loan amount granted by gender shows shows an imbalance for the academic year 2021-22 through to 2025-26.
The data reveals that the total number of loan applicants rose by 3.7 per cent to 1,087, 262 in 2025-26, out of which 65.9 per cent were beneficiaries.
The number of male loan applicants increased by 5.5 per cent to 634,900 while that of female loan applicants rose by 1.4 per cent to 452,362 in 2025-26.
A closer look at the numbers reveals a consistent pattern - male students benefitted more than their female counters.
Out of the 1,087,262 total applicants in the 2025-26 academic year, 716,417 were successful, comprising 411,337 male beneficiaries compared to 305,080 females.
Male students received Sh35.5 billion loans while female beneficiaries were allocated Sh26.5 billion.
Out of the 1,048,008 total applicants in the 2024-25 academic year, 718,447 went through comprising 415,870 male and 302,577 female applicants.
Of the Sh46,9 billion loans disbursed that year, Sh27.3 billion went to the male applicants while Sh19.6 billion went to female applicants.
That year, 186,057 of the 601,927 male loan applicants were unsuccessful compared to 143,504 female applicants shortlisted from a pool of 446,081 applicants.
In the 2023-24 academic year, a total of Sh33.4 billion Helb loans were advanced to 530,893 loan beneficiaries out of a total of 833,857 applicants.
Out of this amount, Sh21.2 billion was shared among 321,385 male beneficiaries compared to Sh12.2 billion shared among 209,508 female applicants.
A total of 302,964 applicants were unsuccessful that year, comprising 167,177 males and 135,787 females.
The 2022-23 had Helb disburse a total of Sh13.8 billion in loans to 336,327 beneficiaries, Sh8.3 billion of which went to male students while Sh5.5 billion went to female beneficiaries.
That year, the board received a total of 641,237 applications (362,662 male and 278,575 female but only 199,884 male applicants and 136,443 female counterparts received financial support.
Applications in the 2021-22 academic year stood at 481,027 out of which 343,055 were successful (203,422 male and 139,633 female).
A total of Sh14.4 billion loans were disbursed that year with Sh8.6 billion going to male beneficiaries and the remaining Sh5.8 went to their female counterparts.
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