The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced plans to replace its current system of paying tuition fees directly to tertiary institutions with a digital token-based payment platform designed to eliminate double payments, improve transparency, and give students greater control over tuition disbursements.
The proposed reform was disclosed by NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, during an interview on ARISE News on Sunday.
Under the new model, eligible students will receive a digital payment token on their mobile phones, which can only be used to settle tuition fees at their institutions. Students will activate the payment themselves at the bursary, ensuring funds are released only when required.
“We’re looking at a tokenized system where the student has the funds effectively as a token on their telephone, and when they go to the bursary, they can effectively push a button that makes the payment, and then they’re allowed to carry on with classes,” Sawyerr said.
He explained that once the system is fully deployed, NELFUND will discontinue direct tuition payments to universities and other tertiary institutions.
“Once we are able to successfully achieve that upgrade in the system, it will mean that we no longer pay the schools; the student pays the schools but through a token,” he added.
Initiative Designed to prevent misuse of tuition loans
Sawyerr said the decision to avoid transferring tuition loans directly into students’ bank accounts was deliberate, as doing so could create opportunities for funds to be diverted to non-educational purposes.
“We chose not to pay students directly for the loans because that would take us into an entirely new area where students get paid for the fees, and they can then make the decision as to whether they want to go to school or not,” he said.
He noted that while maintenance allowances continue to be paid directly to students, tuition payments remain subject to controlled disbursement to ensure the funds serve their intended purpose.
According to Sawyerr, the student loan initiative introduced under President Bola Tinubu’s administration is intended to remove financial barriers preventing qualified Nigerians from accessing higher education.
“The objective is to ensure that those who have the capacity to go to a tertiary institution are not hindered because they don’t have money,” he said.
Reform Targets Double-payment Complaints
The proposed payment overhaul follows complaints from beneficiaries whose institutions received tuition payments from both students and NELFUND, resulting in duplicate payments.
Sawyerr attributed the issue largely to the timing of the programme’s rollout, which began in the middle of academic sessions. Many students paid their tuition to meet registration and examination deadlines before their loan applications were approved and processed.
He said synchronizing loan application and payment cycles with institutional academic calendars, alongside the token-based payment system, is expected to significantly reduce such cases.
“The fact that we’re now aligning our payment and application cycles to the academic cycle will ease these problems. I don’t think problems ever go away; there’ll be new ones, but we’ll deal with them as they come along,” he said.
Over N206 Billion Disbursed
The new payment model forms part of broader reforms aimed at strengthening accountability and improving the efficiency of Nigeria’s student loan programme as participation continues to expand.
According to NELFUND’s Daily Status Report released in March 2026, the agency had disbursed N206.29 billion in tuition loans and upkeep allowances to 1,164,222 beneficiaries since the programme commenced.
The report also showed that 1,734,985 students had applied for the scheme after the application portal opened on May 24, 2024, highlighting the growing demand for student financing across the country’s tertiary institutions.
