Private universities in Nigeria don't make profit- VC

If you have always believed private universities in Nigeria are making a lot of money due to the high tuition fees they charge, its about time you change your belief about them.

The Vice-Chancellor of one of the popular faith-based universities in Nigeria, Prof Dapo Asaju has reportedly said that private universities in Nigeria do not make profit.

Prof Asaju, who is the Vice-Chancellor of Ajayi Crowther University in an interview with the Sun Newspaper complained about private tertiary institutions in Nigeria being underfunded.

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''Our only source of income is the tuition fees that we collect from the students. There’s no other source of income...the Anglican Church owns this school, but the Anglican Church does not fund it. We fund it through the fees we charge students. We’re one of the lowest fees-charging private universities in the country. We probably charge the lowest fees.

Speaking about the difference between Private and government-owned universities, Asaju says funding is the only difference between them saying raising money is a challenge.

The only difference is that while I was at LASU, funding was coming from the government. You didn’t have to lose your head or sleep about how to get money. But here, you have to go the extra mile to manage resources. You have to think of where your next salary would come from. But I make bold to say that despite the stress, we’ve never owed salaries for one day. We’ve been paying our salaries despite the fact that the wage bill is getting higher.

Our average running cost every month is about N70 million. Wage bill alone is N55 million, yet not a kobo comes from any of the proprietors.

Also, in November 2017, the Chancellor of Covenant University, Bishop David Oyedepo said his church, the Living Faith Church Worldwide popularly known as Winners’ Chapel has not made any profit from its University since inception.

He said, ''compare what they pay here and there and what those payments cover. The rate of power consumption in the hostels alone is out of this world. All we need to juxtapose this is that they should rent the room and pay for electricity and they would pay ten times the amount.

''People should just sit down and find out what exactly they are paying for. The church has not drawn anything from Covenant University since inception in 12 years. But this year, the church reserves about N1.6bn stakes in its development. So, it’s not a business, it’s a service platform.''

Ajayi Crowther University was founded in 2005 by the Anglican Communion. The university is located in Oyo state and its fees range from N195,600 to N670,000.