'FG spends up to N1.5m on every University student'

yetunde oyeleke

September 21, 2015 4:33 PM

The cost of education in public universities is higher than private universities because the government spends up to N1.5 million on every Nigerian undergraduate.

Pro-Chancellor of Lead City University, Ibadan, Professor Jide Owoeye

The Pro-Chancellor of Lead City University (LCU), Ibadan, Professor Jide Owoeye, said this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan.

According to him, fees being paid in private universities are relatively lower.

"The cost per head of student in University of Ibadan or University of Lagos for example cannot be less than N700,000 when you are talking about Arts courses or Basic Social Sciences courses," Owoeye said.

“But when it comes to courses like Medicine, Engineering, government is spending nothing less than N1.5m on each of the students, but the students do not know this because they are not paying.

“In our own case, the highest fee is about N500,000; we have fees as low as N100,000 in the Faculty of Arts for courses like Performing Arts as well as English and Literary Studies."

He explained that the fees in public universities are being offset by tax payers' money allocated to them.

“Those students that attend public universities are not attending for free. Somebody is paying," he added.

"It is you and I, the tax payers that are paying because that money could have been spent on something else like electricity, but it is a function of opportunity cost.”

READ: ‘Ghana universities not as developed as those in Nigeria’ – Prof Owoeye

The Professor also criticized Nigerians who go to Ghana to study, arguing that Nigeria institutions are more developed and less expensive than their Ghanaian counterparts.

yetunde oyeleke