Ex-LASU VC says public universities should charge at least ₦1 million tuition per student

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• Former LASU VC Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello says public universities may need at least ₦1 million tuition per student.

• She said LASU’s IGR rose from ₦3 billion to ₦13 billion, but its monthly payroll now exceeds ₦1 billion.

• The proposal comes amid calls for Nigerian universities to diversify funding beyond government allocations and tuition.

For many Nigerian parents, getting a child through university already means juggling school fees with rent, food, transport and other household expenses.

Now, a former vice-chancellor of Lagos State University (LASU) says some public universities may need to charge at least ₦1 million per student every year if they want to become financially independent.

Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello proposed this while reflecting on her five-year tenure as LASU vice-chancellor, which ended on September 19, 2026.

She said the rising cost of running a university has made it difficult for institutions to depend on internally generated revenue alone.

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According to Olatunji-Bello, LASU’s internally generated revenue increased from about ₦3 billion when she assumed office in 2021 to ₦13 billion during her tenure. But even that increase, she said, is not enough to meet the university’s financial obligations.

“Right now, LASU does not have financial self-sustainability,” she said, adding that the university’s monthly payroll is now more than ₦1 billion.

Her argument is that universities seeking financial independence would have to charge substantially higher fees.

Olatunji-Bello pointed to the difference between what some secondary schools charge and the fees paid by students at some public universities. While some secondary schools charge more than ₦1 million per term, she noted that some universities still collect around ₦100,000 annually.

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“So, any public university that wants to sustain financial independence will have to charge school fees of not less than N1 million per student,” she said.

She also argued that maintaining academic standards requires significant investment, telling parents to prioritise their children’s education.

But the ₦1 million proposal comes at a time when the Federal Government is also asking universities to look beyond tuition for additional funding.

Education Minister Maruf Tunji Alausa recently urged vice-chancellors to diversify their revenue sources, saying government funding alone cannot sustain universities.

The National Universities Commission said Alausa disclosed that only four of Nigeria’s 68 federal universities were making meaningful use of alternative funding opportunities, including research grants, endowments, alumni donations, philanthropy and partnerships with industry.

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That means the funding debate is not simply about how much students should pay. Universities are also being pushed to become better at raising money from research, alumni, businesses and other sources.

During her tenure, Olatunji-Bello said LASU increased its revenue by introducing new academic programmes, expanding postgraduate education, digitalising services and developing other income-generating activities.

She also highlighted LASU’s continued popularity among university applicants, saying it was the most applied-to university among UTME candidates in 2025 and retained that position in 2026.

Her proposed ₦1 million annual tuition, however, is not a new government directive. It is the former LASU VC’s argument for how public universities seeking financial independence could fund the rising cost of running their institutions.

The bigger question for students and parents is what happens when the cost of keeping public universities running begins to compete with the reason many Nigerians depend on them in the first place: affordability.