HELB CEO Geoffrey Monari speaking during a media sensitisation workshop in Naivasha on August 20, 2026.The Universities Fund will on Friday release data on scholarship applications submitted by first-year students for the 2026-27 academic year as learners continue reporting to their respective institutions.
The release will coincide with the issuance of ISO certification to the Fund, confirming that its systems and processes supporting the delivery of higher education financing in Kenya meet the requirements of the relevant standard.
The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) placed a total of 293,869 students in higher education institutions for the 2026-27 admission cycle, including 202,133 students in degree programmes.
Under the Student-Centred Funding Model (SCFM), government-sponsored students are eligible for loans and scholarships covering between 30 and 70 per cent of the programme cost.
The Universities Fund allocates undergraduate scholarships to students in public universities, while the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) issues loans and bursaries.
A Bill is, however, before Parliament seeking to dissolve HELB, the Universities Fund Board and the TVET Funding Board and replace them with a single body, the Tertiary Education Funding Authority (TEFA).
If approved, the Tertiary Education Placement and Funding Bill proposes that TEFA scrap the scholarship component and fully support government-sponsored students through loans repayable from a year after a beneficiary secures employment.
Unlike HELB, which relies heavily on Treasury allocations and loan repayments, the Bill proposes that TEFA be empowered to raise alternative financing through capital markets, Treasury bonds, pension funds, collective investment schemes and private commercial partnerships.
The release of the scholarship application data will coincide with the closure of a two-day workshop in Naivasha examining the 2026-27 placement cycle, ongoing university funding reforms and emerging issues affecting the sector.
The workshop, convened by KUCCPS in partnership with the Media Council of Kenya, also provides journalists and higher education stakeholders with a platform to interrogate the proposed funding reforms.
Meanwhile, HELB has issued guidance to students who may have forgotten their Higher Education Financing (HEF) Portal passwords on how to regain access to their accounts.
Students who have forgotten their passwords do not need to create new accounts.
They can visit the HEF website, click Forgot Password, enter the email address associated with their HEF account and validate it to initiate the password reset process.
A four-digit OTP code will then be sent to the email address to confirm the applicant's identity.
Once the OTP has been successfully verified, the student can create a new password and regain access to the account.
