The federal government has announced that tertiary institutions with less than 1,000 students enrolment will no longer receive funding from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
 
It said the policy, designed to optimise public resource utilisation by restructuring the funding framework, will take effect from 2026.
Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, stated this at the 2025 Policy Meeting in Abuja. 
 
Prof. Ahmad questioned the fairness of distributing the same amount of resources to schools with low enrollment as to those with much larger student populations.
 
The minister, therefore, urged TETFund beneficiary institutions to exceed the government’s student enrollment benchmark to continue accessing funding from the agency. 
 
Already, it has mandated federal institutions to publish key institutional data on their websites, including the student population. It remains to be seen how it will handle beneficiary institutions owned by sub-nationals. 
 
The federal government had, in May this year, set the minimum student enrollment benchmark at 2,000 per tertiary institution. However, it was gathered that due to pressure from institutional heads, it was later reduced by 50 per cent.
 
The move, which has sent shivers down the spine of beneficiary institutions, especially those with abysmally low student population, has sparked concerns about their eligibility for TETFund interventions and potential funding cuts at a time most owners have left infrastructural development to the agency. 
 
Checks by our correspondent on the websites of some tertiary institutions revealed that Federal Polytechnic, Ohodo, Enugu State, for instance, has an undergraduate student population of 65. 
 
Some industry stakeholders said the policy could threaten institutions’ financial stability and academic programmes, as TETFund accounts for over 80 per cent of interventions in most beneficiary schools.