Accessibility in Public Universities and Challenges of Tuition Fees in South-South Geo-Political Zone Nigeria

Abstract

Increasing social awareness and economic value of higher education has contributed to the high demand for and access to university education in Nigeria. The expansionist policy intervention of government over the years in university education is often limited by inadequacy of state funding thereby justifying the introduction of tuition to augment the shortfalls in their financial plan. The analytical primary data collected provide the historical progression of accessibility, administrative methods adopted by universities, implications and remedies in Nigerian universities. Student organization representatives selected from six federal universities in South-South, Nigeria representing110 student executives sampled through mixed sampling technique of cluster and simple random. Internal consistency of the survey instrument was determined by using split half method and analyzed with Cronbach Alpha to obtain 0.78. Descriptive statistics was applied for the analysis and findings revealed that universities through tuition fees fund essential facilities and utilities that support teaching and learning as well as expand university access. However, non-involvement of student government by university management in negotiation of tuition and inappropriate communication has been identified as trigger of crises in universities. On the other hand, participative decision making practice should be entrenched as a lifestyle of university governance so as to bridge the information gaps and eliminate the outbreak of tuition-related crises of different proportion in universities.

Technical Terms: University education, Accessibility, Tuition Fees, Governance