Universities owing the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) more than Sh300 million have been forced to either clear their bills or agree on repayment plans before receiving detailed student placement lists.
The agency has adopted the tougher approach after years of unpaid placement fees, with universities emerging as the largest group of institutions yet to settle their accounts.
KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Agnes Mercy Wahome told the National Assembly Education Committee that the unpaid amount had affected the agency’s ability to meet its revenue target.
“Placement fees are monies invoiced to institutions after we have finished with placement. But some institutions fail to honour their obligations to pay; thus, we could not achieve our target. We have about Sh300 million that has not been paid by institutions, mainly universities,” she said.
Wahome appeared before the committee, chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly, as lawmakers examined KUCCPS budget implementation for the 2025/2026 financial year.
Documents submitted to the committee showed that KUCCPS received Sh261.57 million in placement fees against a projected Sh284.16 million. The agency attributed the gap to institutions that had not honoured their payment obligations.
Committee vice-chairperson Eve Obara questioned KUCCPS on the types of institutions that had failed to remit the Sh1,500 placement fee and the steps being taken to recover the outstanding money.
Wahome said the agency had resorted to restricting access to detailed student information as part of efforts to make institutions pay.
“We have been forced to take a harder stance against institutions by withholding student lists needed to validate enrolment data and access government funding,” Wahome said.
Under the arrangement, students received their placement messages, but universities were not given the full lists until they paid their outstanding amounts or committed to a settlement plan.
“The students got messages, but the universities did not get the list until they made a payment or came up with that payment plan. So that has worked wonders,” she said.
The move has seen most universities either settle their bills or enter into agreements with KUCCPS to pay the accumulated debt in instalments.
Wahome explained that institutions are charged a one-off Sh1,500 fee for every student placed in a university or Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institution.
The fee covers the validation of student information throughout the learner’s programme. KUCCPS conducts the exercise every semester once students have enrolled in their institutions.
The information is required by the Universities Fund (UF) and the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) when processing government funding for students and institutions.
The Sh1,500 charge is meant to cater for the validation service from admission until a student completes their programme, which may take between four and six years depending on the course.
Wahome said the failure by some universities to make payments had been a long-running problem, prompting the agency to introduce a more organised debt recovery system.
“Once we place the students and they report the service we give to the universities, every semester we have to validate the data for them every semester so that the university fund and HELB can process the funds to the universities, and for that we charge a one-off minimal fee of Sh1500. Unfortunately, we have a situation where some universities do not remit. However, starting this FY, we made an agreement, and universities signed and agreed to start paying the debt in instalments,” she said.
The agency has since adopted a debt collection policy and appointed an officer to take charge of recovering the money owed by institutions.
“We started with the board coming up with a debt policy, and there is an officer now in charge of debt collection. We then signed agreements with the tertiary institutions on how they will pay slowly until they meet their obligation,” she told the Committee.
As part of the policy, institutions were also required in the current financial year to provide written repayment plans showing how they would clear their pending bills.
The stricter measures have been applied during the latest placement cycle, with KUCCPS separating the communication sent to students from the release of detailed placement information to universities.
According to the agency’s report to the committee, failure by some institutions to pay their fees contributed to the lower collection recorded during the financial year.
Wahome, however, said KUCCPS expected the outstanding debt to come down as universities continued making payments under the agreements they had signed.
She further told lawmakers that the Tertiary Education, Placement and Funding Bill 2026 could help bring student placement under a common framework and improve the handling of education data if enacted.
The proposed legislation defines the role of the Placement Service in placing learners in public and private universities and provides timelines for the placement process. It also establishes a system through which institutions would submit student returns.
“The Placement Service requests the Committee to revise the Bill to include reporting on student progression and completion,” Wahome said.