The Naira equivalent of tuition fees for Nigerian students living in the UK has increased by over 60 per cent following President Bola Tinubu’s decision to unify the nation’s multiple exchange rates.
The naira has fallen from N471/dollar to N750/dollar and N589.4/pound to N957.2-1015/pound since the Central Bank of Nigeria floated the Naira at the Investors and Exporters’ Window of the foreign exchange market.
Commenting on the development, a Nigerian student residing in Manchester, Adejoro Deborah told Punch;
“This policy is affecting those of us here and even intending students. My sibling has had to forfeit her admission because of this policy.
“Many students have fallen victim to online scammers just because they want to buy pounds, a friend of mine, for example, was a victim of third-party purchase as the banks at home are not dependable.”
Another Nigerian student studying in Leeds explained that the major challenge was that many kept their tuition fees in their naira account at the former rate.
The student said;
“Now they have to start looking for more money because the rate has gone up. If the official rate is not different from street rate, so what’s the essence of waiting for several weeks for your bank when you can just get it from third-party platform. It has only put more pressure on the students to look for more money.
“If you put N5m in your account in March when the rate was around N560/£, that means it will pay around £9k tuition fee, but by July, the N5m will only be able to pay around £5k since the rate is now around 1k/£, so that’s where the real problem is. You need to start looking for an additional £4k. That’s the challenges many students are facing.”
Another Nigerian, who is currently studying at Liverpool John Moores University, told the publication that he became stranded after the school withdrew his access to the school portal after failing to raise the required 4,800 pounds to complete his tuition.
The stranded student who revealed that he is only allowed to work for 20 hours a week as a student, added that he can’t get a better job because prospective employers are demanding proof that he is allowed to work as a student.
He said;
“The school has withdrawn my access to its platform. As a result, I can’t check the results of my last exam. Everything is done via the platform. I cannot also access my official email given by the school. I can’t attend both online and in-person classes again. It is very frustrating, I am completely shut out.
“In fairness to the school, I was given several deadlines which I missed. I could not pay because I was unable to raise enough funds to buy foreign exchange. The exchange rate is very high.”
Another student who shared a copy of a letter that had been addressed to him giving him a final deadline to pay the outstanding tuition, said he almost lost his student visa before borrowing the money from friends in Nigeria.
The letter sent by the Head of Registry Services of the school read;
“According to our records there is an outstanding balance of £4800 on your university tuition fee account. LJMU has advised you of this situation via emails to both your LJMU and personal email addresses.
“Despite this correspondence, the debt remains outstanding and accordingly, we are now arranging for you to be withdrawn as a student of the University. If this happens, UK Visas and Immigration will be informed that you are no longer a student at LJMU.”
An IT Project Management student at Teesside University also disclosed that while she did not benefit from the official rate initially, she still has to pay more now.
She said;
“When I got in initially, I converted at the rate of N920-935 thereabout. But after the CBN reforms, it has been a nightmare. The highest I did a while ago was N990. But today, it is about N1008, if not more.”
Another Nigerian student studying at Strathclyde University, said the new exchange rate might make him drop out of school. He disclosed that when he started his Ph.D program, his budget was between N33m –N35m for the entire programme but it has now increased to N60m.
He said;
“This new reality has called for a review of the whole plan entirely. Everything has to reset at the end of the year.
“My year is ending in October/November but I now have to review everything. I am running a Ph.D. programme and the cost is 20,000 pounds a year. When we were using Form A and the official rate was about N600, it was about N11m.