Student loan: 1.2m beneficiaries listed as scheme begins Friday

The long-awaited student loan program is set to take off this Friday with a staggering 1.2 million students in federal tertiary institutions across the country being the first batch of beneficiaries. This initiative was announced by the Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), Mr. Akintunde Sawyerr.

The scheme, which is a part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, aims to provide financial assistance to needy students, covering obligatory fees and offering a stipend to ease their financial burdens. The interest-free loan program features flexible repayment options, starting two years after completing the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) if the individual is employed.

The loan fund will directly cover 100% of institutional fees to the schools and provide monthly stipends to students during their academic sessions. The program will first be rolled out to federal institutions before extending to state institutions.

To access the loan, students need to meet specific requirements, including providing their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination registration number, National Identification Number (NIN), and Bank Verification Number (BVN). The money to fund the loan scheme is one percent of the revenue generated by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) annually.

The management of the loan scheme will verify applications and attached requirements to ascertain eligibility.