Many Nigerian students are facing tough times in the United Kingdom after the naira equivalent of their tuition fees increased by over 60 per cent following the recent move by the Central Bank of Nigeria to unify the nation’s foreign exchange rates.
About two weeks after President Bola Tinubu promised to unify the nation’s multiple exchange rates, the apex bank decided to float the naira at the Investors and Exporters’ Window of the foreign exchange market. Since then, the naira has fallen from N471/dollar to N750/dollar and N589.4/pound to N957.2/pound.
This has led to about 60 per cent increase in tuition fees for students in the UK.
This rise in exchange rate has put more pressure on many Nigerians that are schooling in the UK and beyond.
The UK is one of the destinations of choice for many Nigerians as 128,770 Nigerian students enrolled in universities in the United Kingdom between 2015 and 2022 according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency of the UK.
According to the CBN, study-related foreign exchange outflow to the UK rose to $2.5bn in 2022. Nigerian students and their dependants in the United Kingdom contribute about £1.9bn annually to the UK economy, according to an analysis by SBM Intelligence.
Many of these students may now struggle to pay the balance of their tuition due to the sharp decline in the value of the naira.
UK universities are currently on break.
A Nigerian student resident in Manchester, Adejoro Deborah, who sounded stressed said “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.”
The student added, “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, has become stranded after the school withdrew his access to the school portal.
His access to the university’s portal was withdrawn by the school following his failure to pay his tuition. The Nigerian (name withheld) could not raise the required 4,800 pounds to complete his tuition.
Narrating his ordeal, 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.”
The depressed student, who is allowed to work for 20 hours a week as a student, said he could not get a better job because prospective employers were demanding proof that he is allowed to work as a student.
He added, “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 (name withheld) of the school, said he was on the verge of losing his studentship before he managed to borrow money from friends in Nigeria to pay his tuition.
He shared a copy of a letter that had been addressed to him giving him a final deadline to pay the outstanding tuition.
The letter read in part, “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.”
The letter was sent by the Head of Registry Services of the school.
A student, studying IT Project Management at Teesside University, lamented to that many Nigerian students are still in shock.
She said, “Some people are not totally stable because they used to convert their naira to pounds for school fees payment.”
She explained 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 (name withheld), who is studying at Strathclyde University, explained that the new exchange rate might cause him to drop out of school.
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.”
He noted that his budget when he started was between N33m –N35m for the entire programme. He stated, “Now, I will be looking at N20m for the second year and N40m in total for my remaining two years.
“This is causing me to rethink my plans, because I can’t spend that type of money on this. N40m is a lot, especially on those at home that are sponsoring this, it doesn’t sound reasonable. This will impact how I will continue with my course.”
Speaking on the matter, a student currently studying in the UK, who simply identified herself as Shalewa said, “When I started schooling in London in 2017, pounds was about N300 or less. I am still in school and now I had to pay N1,000 for one pound. 19,500 pounds to naira means that my mum will be coughing out millions that she should be using for retirement.”
An international multimedia journalist and student based in the UK, Michael Orodare, noted that the suffering of many Nigerian students is an open secret.
He said while many people had tried to use Form A to pay their tuition fee balance, earlier, banks had delayed with excuses, including issues around tax clearance.
He said, “A lot of students are finding it difficult to pay their tuition. What many Nigerian students here are now trying to do is to use the naira in their account to try and buy pounds which is now more than N1000. This is now more expensive and making fee payment very difficult for Nigerian students.”