Luanar hikes tuition fees by 45%

The Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) has increased tuition fees for all the undergraduate diploma and degree programmes offered by the university by an average of 45 percent.

According to the university, the new fees, hiked mostly from between K55 000 to K300 000 per year, are effective the 2016/2017 academic year which is expected to commence in three weeks time.

Many public university students struggle to finance their studies
Many public university students struggle to finance their studies

A press statement released yesterday indicates that bachelor’s degree programmes generic students at Bunda Campus will now be required to pay K362 500 whereas bachelor’s degree mature entry students at the same Bunda Campus and those at City Campus will now be paying K771 000 per year.

The college has pegged the new tuition fees for “bachelor’s degree programmes at NRC Campus at K625 500 while bachelor’s degree programmes [ODL – Open Distance Learning] has been pegged at K300 000,” reads the statement.

It also says tuition fees for diploma programmes have also been hiked. Students at NRC Campus are now required to pay K367 749; those at City Campus will be paying K385 500 while those at Bunda Campus will be paying K362 500.

Reacting to the new hike in a telephone interview yesterday, Luanar Students’ Union president, Peter Mbweza, described the development as sad, saying most students at the college have expressed shock at the news.

“Considering how the economy of the country is fairing at the moment as well as the fact that we were already paying a lot during the previous academic calendar, we believe the new fee hike will inconvenience us a lot,” he said.

Luanar Bunda Campus
Luanar Bunda Campus

The fee hike at Luanar is coming against the background of a hike in fees at another public university, University of Malawi (Unima) where fees for mature entry programmes at The Polytechnic were pegged at K950 000 whereas fees for those upgrading at Chancellor College was hiked to K900 000 per year.

Mature entry students at Kamuzu College of Nursing (KCN) and College of Medicine (CoM) will be required to pay K1 million and K1.4 million per year, respectively.

Fees for generic students at Unima was also hiked from between K55 000 and K275 000 to K400 000.

Apart from coming hot on the heels of the controversial fee hike at Unima, Luanar’s fee hike also follows a revelation by the university’s authorities that 50 percent of students who enroll at Luanar fail to complete their education due to financial problems.

The university’s vice-chancellor Professor George Kanyama Phiri told our sister paper Weekend Nation in April this year that “the college enrolls almost 1 000 students [per year], but out of them only 50 percent graduate and the rest let the chance of going to university slip away due to financial problems.”

Many public university students are struggling to finance their studies

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