Student Loan: FG postponed commencement date for state owned universities

The federal government of Nigerian has postponed the commencement date for phase two of its student loan scheme targeted at state universities.

This was contained in a statement released on Tuesday by the spokesperson for the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, Nasir Ayitogo.

NELFUND had earlier fixed June 25, 2024, to commence the second phase. However, the management of the Scheme has announced a postponement by two weeks.

FIDELINFO gathered that the postponement by NELFUND was necessitated by the failure of several state-owned institutions to upload the required student data and fee information to the NELFUND Student Verification System (SVS).

According to Ayitogo, only a limited number of state-owned institutions have completed the data submission process since its inception.

“The Management of Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) hereby announces a 14-day postponement of the application process for student loans for state institutions due to low data submissions”, the statement partly reads.

Recall that on May 24, the NELFUND launched a portal for federal universities to register for the scheme.

President Bola Tinubu signed the reviewed Student Loan Act in April 2024 to enable indigent students to access interest facilities.

The government had earmarked N60 billion for the scheme in the 2024 national budget