Why Will Student Loans Be Restricted to High-Demand Courses?

The Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) is planning to change its rules for student loans. Akintunde Sawyerr, the head of NELFUND, talked about this during a virtual meeting called ‘Student Loan Masterclass: Why, What, and How?’ organised by The Renewed Hope Global.

Sawyerr said that loans would soon only be given for courses that are in high demand because they are more likely to lead to jobs that can pay back these loans. This change is to make sure that education supports the country’s growth.

“Right now, we give loans to all students, but we know that some courses are more important for Nigeria than others. For example, engineering or medical courses are more useful to us than language courses,” Sawyerr explained.

However, he also noted that they might still support courses that can help students get jobs overseas and send money back to Nigeria.

So far, 335,000 students across 127 colleges and universities have gotten help from this loan program.