When rent, food, peer pressure and academic demands stretch students and parents to the limit, and graduation beckons
For thousands of Kenyan families, a university admission letter represents hope. It reflects years of schooling, parental sacrifice, and the belief that education can open the door to a better future. Behind that letter is often a parent who has worked extra hours, reduced household spending, borrowed money, sold livestock, or postponed personal ambitions to keep a child in university. For the student, campus represents independence, professional training, new friendships, and the chance to build a career. But once the admission celebrations fade, another reality sets in: the challenge is not simply gaining entry into university — it is remaining enrolled, completing the course, and emerging prepared for life beyond campus.
For Kiplangat, joining university in 2023 marked the beginning of a new chapter, bringing the excitement of higher education and greater independence, but also exposing her to the financial pressures that accompany life away from home. Accommodation was among the immediate concerns — she shared a room with a friend at a monthly rent of Sh15,000. But rent was only one item in a growing list of expenses that included food, transport, academic materials, internet bundles, and unexpected needs. The university dream consequently became more than a journey through lecture halls; it became a lesson in budgeting, resilience, sacrifice, relationships, and survival.
The Hidden Price of a University Education
The cost of university education cannot be measured by tuition alone. For a student living away from home, the actual cost includes accommodation, meals, transport, stationery, printing, textbooks, internet connectivity, personal effects, and emergencies. Even modest daily expenses can accumulate into a substantial monthly burden, and a carefully prepared budget can quickly be disrupted by unexpected academic requirements, medical needs, or household obligations. For students from financially constrained families, there is often little margin for error — the same university experience can offer one student room for exploration and growth, while for another it becomes a constant calculation of which basic need to prioritise.
Accommodation is typically the first major financial decision facing students who leave home for university, and Kiplangat’s Sh15,000 monthly rent illustrates the pressure housing can place on a budget. Sharing accommodation can reduce individual costs but introduces questions of privacy, study space, and compatibility, while living farther from campus may offer cheaper housing at the cost of higher transport expenses. The cheapest room is therefore not always the most economical option overall — students must weigh the combined cost of rent, utilities, and daily movement before deciding.
Food is another unavoidable expense. When finances become strained, students may opt for cheaper meals or reduce discretionary spending, and for some, the pressure can become severe enough to affect regular nutrition. The consequences often extend into academic performance, since a hungry student may struggle to concentrate during lectures or maintain the energy needed for revision — underscoring the link between student welfare and academic success.
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The Side-Hustle Generation
Financial pressure has pushed many young Kenyans toward income-generating activities alongside their studies — running small businesses, offering tutoring, selling products, or taking up part-time work. For students facing financial strain, such activities provide essential support, but they also introduce a real time-management challenge: hours spent working are hours not available for lectures, study, or rest. Striking a sustainable balance between earning and safeguarding academic performance is, for many, a considerable challenge.
These economic pressures do not stay outside the classroom. A student preoccupied with rent may struggle to focus during lectures; another may be unable to complete assignments for lack of funds for printing or internet access; a student working late may arrive fatigued for an early class. These circumstances do not determine academic outcomes on their own, but they create additional barriers to learning — a reason to consider the conditions under which students study, rather than judging performance by grades alone.
When Peer Pressure Meets Financial Pressure
Financial strain is not the only challenge facing young people entering university. Campus is often the first environment in which students make significant social decisions independently, encountering people from diverse backgrounds and lifestyles. The desire to form friendships and belong is natural, but without guidance and personal boundaries, some students gravitate toward peer groups whose priorities conflict with their academic goals or values. What begins as a search for connection can evolve into pressure to engage in activities that carry financial, academic, social or legal risk.
A student already struggling to meet basic needs may feel compelled to maintain a lifestyle beyond their means, spending money intended for rent or food to fit into a social group, or allocating excessive time to social activities at the expense of coursework. This is not about labelling any group as “bad” — it is about recognising the influence of peer dynamics at a formative stage of life. A supportive friend can encourage attendance, share resources, and reinforce focus; a negative influence can do the opposite. Universities can help by offering mentorship programmes, counselling services, student organisations, and structured activities that promote healthy engagement, so that students have the confidence to decline what conflicts with their values or means. Freedom, ultimately, is most effective when paired with responsibility and discernment.
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The Silent Emotional Burden
Financial hardship is not always visible. A student may appear cheerful among peers while privately worrying about rent or food, hesitant to disclose the struggle to parents already making sacrifices, and prone to comparing themselves with classmates who appear more financially stable. Social expectations can intensify this pressure further, affecting confidence, concentration and overall wellbeing — which is why accessible, responsive student support systems matter.
When Parents Have Been Squeezed Dry
Behind many university students are families making sacrifices that often go unrecognised. A parent may finance education by cutting household spending, drawing down savings, borrowing, selling assets, taking on additional work, or postponing personal plans — sometimes for years. But parental resources are not unlimited: income may decline, businesses may struggle, employment may become unstable, and other dependents may also need support. Eventually, even the most committed parent can reach financial exhaustion. The phrase “squeezed dry” captures this reality — and yet, graduation begins to draw near.
For some families, the final year brings mixed emotions: relief that the long journey is nearing completion, alongside anxiety over remaining obligations. Graduation costs, transport, accommodation, professional requirements, and the transition into the labour market introduce fresh financial pressure just as parental resources are most depleted.
When the Graduate Returns Home
For some graduates, the first destination after university is not employment — it is home. They return with a degree, skills, and valuable experience, but without immediate job prospects. This does not diminish the value of higher education; a degree provides knowledge, professional preparation, networks, and a foundation for future opportunity. But graduation does not guarantee immediate employment, and a graduate may shift from one form of financial uncertainty — rent and food during university — to another: the work search afterwards. For families that have sacrificed heavily, this waiting period can be especially difficult.
The transition from university to employment deserves more attention. Graduates enter a competitive labour market where academic qualifications must often be complemented by practical experience, digital skills, communication ability, and professional networks. Career preparation should therefore be built into the university experience itself, with realistic guidance on employment pathways, internships, entrepreneurship, and workplace readiness — not to guarantee jobs, but to better equip graduates for the realities ahead.
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Financial Support Is Part of the Bigger Picture
Kenya’s student financing system remains a critical tool for expanding access to higher education, but financing tuition alone does not eliminate the broader cost of living — students still need accommodation, food, transport, connectivity and personal necessities. The discussion on university affordability must therefore weigh the total cost of being a student. Access matters, but access without the means to remain enrolled can still expose students to financial hardship and academic disruption.
Preparation should begin before students report to campus, with practical knowledge of budgeting, saving, distinguishing needs from wants, and planning for emergencies. Parents can help by discussing realistic university costs in advance, and universities can reinforce this through orientation programmes, mentorship, and financial literacy initiatives.
Resilience Is Not a Substitute for Support
Kenyan students have shown remarkable resilience — studying while working, running small businesses between lectures, choosing distant accommodation to cut costs, and learning to manage limited resources under pressure. But resilience should not be romanticised: hardworking, determined, high-performing students may still face financial hardship. Providing support does not encourage dependency — it creates the conditions under which effort and ability can translate more effectively into success.
A Shared Responsibility
Student welfare cannot rest solely on families. Universities play a critical role through welfare offices, counselling services, and academic advisers, and can strengthen mentorship, career guidance and student engagement through structured programmes — with early intervention helping to prevent manageable challenges from escalating into crises. Students, families, universities, government agencies, and employers all share responsibility for the university journey; no single actor can address all of its challenges alone.
Public perception of university life is often shaped by admission announcements and graduation photographs. Less visible is the journey in between — students carefully budgeting to survive the month, sharing accommodation to cut costs, working between lectures, quietly opting out of social activities, and navigating peer pressure while trying to stay focused, alongside parents sustaining years of sacrifice and graduates who leave campus with qualifications but face delays finding work. None of this diminishes the value of higher education — it highlights the broader economic and social context in which that education takes place.
The success of higher education should not be measured by enrolment and graduation rates alone. It must also consider whether students can afford to remain in university, whether adequate support systems exist, and whether graduates are prepared for the transition into employment and independent adulthood. For Kiplangat and many others, university is more than an academic experience — it is a transition into adulthood, a period of learning to manage finances, time, relationships and uncertainty, and, at times, a test of how much a young person can achieve with limited resources.
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Kenya’s task is not only to open the doors of higher education, but to make the journey through those doors more affordable, supportive and meaningful — so that graduation becomes a genuine bridge to opportunity, rather than simply the end of one struggle and the beginning of another.
By Hillary Muhalya
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