In this article are top 21 most expensive universities in Nigeria 2015. This information is helpful for those seeking admission, or maybe just for knowledge sake. A look at the figures here will surprise you. Nigerians are rich indeed!
1) BABCOCK UNIVERSITY
This is a private Christian co-educational university owned and operated by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Nigeria. The university was established as the Adventist College of West Africa (ACWA) in 1957. Their school fee ranges from N620,000 to N3 million. In Babcock University, your meal and hostel defines your fee. It offers two and three daily meal services. And for accommodation, there are three to seven students in a room. When it comes to accommodation, it depends on your choice. Either it is regular (7 in a room), premium (4 in a room) or cla$$ic (3 or 2 in a room). Here is a breakdown of Babcock school fees: Medicine: N3 million, Law: N2 million, Accounting: N1.5 million, Nursing: N1 million, other faculties: N860,000 – N620,000.
2) AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA (AUN)
AUN is the first Nigerian university with American structure and curriculum. It is in north eastern Nigeria, Yola, capital of Adamawa State. At ABTI, students pay as much as N1,378,500 to receive quality education. Parents, however, pay in dollars. For tuition: $6,600 (N990,000), meals: $1,900 (285,000), four in a room: $500 (N75,000), private room: $1,900 – N285,000). In total, it amounts to N1,378,500 per annum. Accommodation and feeding are taken care by the school.
3) AFE BABALOLA UNIVERSITY
Afe Babalola University is a private higher institution in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. It was established in 2009 by Nigeria’s foremost lawyer and legal icon, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN). The fee covers tuition, development levy, ICT, ID card, medical, sports, PTCF levy, course registration, caution fee and accommodation which is either four per room or two per room. Here is a breakdown of their school fees: For Engineering: N925,000 (4 beds) and N1,075,000 (2 beds). Health Science: N725,000 (4 beds) and N875,000 (2 beds) Sciences: N675,000 (4 beds) and N825,000 (2 beds) Social Management Science: N675,000 (4 beds) and N825,000 (2 beds) The fee ranges from N675,000 to N1,075,000 annually. There is no provision for feeding.
4) IGBINEDION UNIVERSITY
The university came into existence following the presentation of certificate of approval on May 16, 1999. Thus, it became the first licensed private university in Nigeria. The tuition ranges from N540,000 to N820,000 without feeding. For Medicine, Pharmacy, Law and Engineering, they pay a tuition of N610,000, accommodation: N100,000 and other facilities: N110,000.
5) BOWEN UNIVERSITY It is owned and operated by the Nigerian Baptist Convention, at Iwo in Osun State and opened November 4, 2002. The tuition fee ranges from N500,000 to N750,000 per annum. The university is only responsible for accommodation and tuition. Students are made to buy their food from the cafeteria.
6) CRAWFORD UNIVERSITY
Crawford University is a private Christian institution in Igbesa, Nigeria. It was established in 2005. The school provides accommodation for students but does not provide feeding. Parents only pay for tuition, accommodation and some additional charges. The school fee ranges from N400,000 to N600,000.
7) REDEEMER’S UNIVERSITY
Redeemer’s University is a Christian school located in Redemption City, Ogun State, Nigeria. It was opened in 2005. At Redeemers, Natural Science pays N605,000, Management Sciences; N575,000 and Humanities pays N545,000. All this fees are paid without feeding but tuition and accommodation. We can see that the fees range from N500,000 to N650,000 per annum.
Other Institutions with high fee are:
8) Lead City University: ₦550,500
9) Caleb University: ₦505,000
10) Ajayi Crowder University: ₦500,000
11) Benson Idahosa: ₦500,000
12) Joseph Ayo Babalola University: ₦436,000
13) Covenant University: ₦432,000
14) Achievers University, Owo: ₦420, 000
15) Novena University: ₦400,000
16) Adeleke University,Ede: 350,000.00
17) Rhema University: ₦325,000
18) Lagos State University: Between N240,000 and N345,000
19) Obong University Nigeria: ₦190,000
20) Oduduwa University: ₦164,000
21) Osun State University– Between ₦130500 and 160,500
For several years in Nigeria,public universities (both federal and state-owned) were the major sources of higher education. Especially, given the much talked-about disparity between products of the universities and polytechnics in the country over the years, the number of candidates gravitating towards universities kept increasing in geometrical terms. Soon, it became obvious that government-owned institutions could no longer meet the ever-increasing demands for university education.
But aside the inability of government-owned universities to absorb the growing population of candidates, factors such as cultism, unrestrained immor*lity and worsening infrastructural facilities in these universities began to make private universities a necessity.
To worsen the situation, incessant strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), ostensibly as a protest against infrastructure decay, became so rife that students often spend five, six or more years on four-year courses or seven to eight years on five-year courses. These all made many wish they had the option of private university education in the country.
But when that wish was eventually granted and private universities began to be licensed beginning from 1999, most Nigerians woke up to the reality that what they had thought would be a source of escape for them from the dying public tertiary education was, and still is, accessible only to the affluent and most privileged in the society.
Strangely too, the rate at which the private universities have since been springing up suggests that profit motive may not be far from the card. It has been observed that more than 50 private universities have sprung up in the country in a space of 15 years – and many more are still in the pipeline.
According to information gathered from the National Universities Commission (NUC), there are 51 private universities in Nigeria, more than half of them owned by faith-based organisations; some by individuals and one by a corporate organisation.
Exorbitant fees
With the fees being charged currently in these private universities, it is obvious that they can only accommodate the children of the affluent – except, of course, middle cla$$ parents who are willing to struggle, tooth and nail, to send their children to private schools, sacrificing in the process all other comforts of life.
Fees charged in some of these private institutions range from N350,000 too N1.6 million per session, depending on the course of study. Generally, average tuition fee per session in Nigerian private universities is about N550,000. For special courses such as medicine, students even spend more!
At the Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State (owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church), medical students pay N2 million as fees. According to information made available on its website, the university charges an average fee of N630,500, which covers accommodation, feeding, tuition, medical insurance and miscellaneous fees. Law, Accounting and Nursing students pay N763,000 per session. Accommodation ranges from N70,000 to N150,000 depending on room size, amenities and number of occupants, while feeding varies from N94,000 to N141,450 per session, depending on the amount of meals per day.
The American University of Nigeria (ABTI-AUN), Yola, Adamawa State, founded by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, has been discovered to be the most expensive of the private universities in Nigeria, with each student paying N1.6 million per session, according to its website.
Final year students in Humanities at the Redeemers University (owned by The Redeemed Christian Church of God), pay N459,600; Management Sciences students pay N476,200 and Sciences, N492,600.
In Afe Babalola University (ABUAD) Ekiti State, owned by legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, fees range from N675,000 to N1,125,000 depending on the faculty and choice of accommodation type.
At the Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, which belongs to the Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, new students pay fees ranging from N640,000 to N820,000 per session for tuition, accommodation and other charges, depending on the course of choice, while returning students pay between N514,320 and N605,000.
At the Gregory University, Uturu, Abia State, medical courses attract N600,000 fee; Engineering courses, N500,000; Social Sciences, N420,000 and N400,000 for other courses – all excluding a N50,000 Acceptance Fee, according to the institution’s website.
Our sources gathered that new students of the Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State and Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara State (owned by the Living Faith Church, aka Winners Chapel) pay tuition ranging between N550,000 and N589,000 in all the courses offered. At the Bells University of Technology, Ota, Ogun State, students pay between N550,000 and N600,000.
At the Crescent University, Abeokuta, owned by Prince Bola Ajibola, also in Ogun State, tuition fee for both fresh and direct entry students is put between N460,000 and N480,000.
Mixed reactions
Naturally, these high fees have been eliciting diverse reactions from Nigerians. Mr Joseph Adeleke, whose child attends one of the private universities in the South-West, says the fees are not too much for the quality of education his child is receiving.
“I do not believe that the money being paid is too much considering the kind of services the good ones among these private schools are offering. The government universities may be much less expensive but I believe they no longer offer the quality education they were characterised with back then,” he said.
Another parent, Mrs Adeleke-Ogundare, who has a younger son that graduated from a faith-based private university in Nigeria and an older one who graduated from a government university, said: “When you go the environment of these private schools, one is impressed by the facilities they have going on. The environment seems quite conducive for learning, unlike that of the government universities.
“But the irony is that my older son who attended a public university turned out with a better grade than the one who attended a private school; and the older seems to be even more level-headed. Having paid so much, and with all the many rules and regulations of the private institution, I would have thought my younger son would turn out with a better grade and be a more disciplined person, but that was not the case.”
When confronted with the fact that most congregants of churches that establish universities cannot afford to send their children to such universities, because of the high fees, the Vice-Chancellor, Crawford University, Igbesa (owned by the Apostolic Faith), Professor Samson Ayanlaja, argued that fingers are not equal and that all congregants in a church cannot possibly be of the same financial status.
He said, “If a member of the church cannot afford to pay for the church’s university, then they can as well take them to the government universities, which are equally academically sound,” noting that the said high tuition fees do not bring about any sort of discrimination among members of the congregation as is being speculated.
A lecturer in a government university, however, described all the private universities as “mere affluence symbol,” saying that “as a lecturer, from what I have seen, products of the private universities are no better than graduates of public universities. Although, they have done a great deal in reducing the demands on the public universities, the fees being charged (by private universities) have not in any way reflected in the quality of graduates they are churning out.”
Mrs Titilola Osho, a secondary school principal, believes that by what it entails to maintain a standard private university, the fees being charged are not too much, especially when compared with what Nigerians pay on their children in foreign universities.
Mr. Abiodun Adebayo, a civil servant whose child pays about N800,000 as tuition to study Accounting at the Babcock University, said he had no regrets for paying so much for quality education. In fact, he said he would not hesitate to send his other children to private universities because “there was no time wasting in private universities.”
Also, Mrs. Dupe Ajibola, a businesswoman, said the tuition fee charged by Bells University of Technology was not too outrageous for her to pay for her daughter’s education, given the fact that federal and state institutions have become unreliable.
A professor who teaches in one of the private universities, and who did not want his name in print, justified the high fees charged by the private universities. These universities, he argued, are self-sustaining institutions with so many things to take care of that these presumably high fees cannot even adequately address.
He said that contrary to some people’s views, some secondary schools charge more that what some of the private universities charge.
“Do you know that some secondary schools charge more than N1 million per term, which translates to N3 million per session? I don’t think that any private university in Nigeria charges up to N3 million per session. When these students leave secondary schools and gain admission to the private universities, they find out that they actually paid more in secondary schools,” the professor said.
He also argued that many private universities pay their lecturers salaries and allowances paid to lecturers in public universities; and that since private universities do not get grants or funds from anywhere, they have to source it from the fees they charge.
He said further: “Private universities must invest in resources. Everything has to do with sustenance. That is why nowadays different programmes attract different fees in these universities. Many private universities are paying their lecturers what lecturers earn in public universities.
“Private universities are a business, and they must be able to remain in business. No matter how altruistic those who found the universities are, the fact is that they are in business and must try to make some profits.”
While opinions vary over the exorbitant or otherwise fees charged by these universities, what cannot be controverted is the fact that with the emergence of private universities, the burden on public universities has been greatly reduced.
Higher education is a fundamental determinant of any country’s relative position in the world. Opening up space for the participation of the private sector in the education system is very important, as it widens access to higher education and broadens choices.
The important thing is, therefore, to ensure that it does not get to a point where one type of education is cla$$ified as being for the poor and/or average cla$$, while another is for the rich.
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