UNIMED VC justifies increasing school fees to over N2m, says Lack of funds threatens institution’s survival

Professor Adesegun Fatusi, the vice-chancellor of the University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED) Ondo State, has insisted that there’s no going back in the tuition fee increase, adding that except the institution to increase tuition fees, the institution may collapse due to insufficient funds.

Watusi said this during a meeting with parents, students, and stakeholders after the recent tuition increase.

He said that the measures taken by the school have become imperative to properly train students in the medical field.

According to him, this measure was not taken to impose unnecessary burdens on the school’s parents and students but to avoid the imminent closure of the school when the school’s funds were insufficient.

He added that without a dedicated structure without unimaginable take-off funds, he could not explain the basic principles behind the establishment of a professional university.

Watusi took the time to detail the challenges that the institution has faced since its establishment in 2014 and its operating costs, and said that with the increase, UNIMED still charges the lowest fees among public universities of medical sciences in the country.

He said “Several times, I have struggled to understand what was going on in the mind of the initiators of this great dream when they conceptualized it with apparently no considerable thought about its infrastructural needs nor its financial sustainability.

“Our fee for the current students is only 10 to 15 percent increase and that is due to several factors and situation trends. This is a specialized school where only very few students are permitted to be trained for each course.

“For example, it’s only 10 students for dentistry. So, when people compare prices, they cannot be comparing it with big universities that are all conventional universities that will have up to 100 to 200 students.

“With the nature of the university, it is capital intensive in dollar-denominated terms of equipment. There is no way we can collect the same money we are collecting in the past with the dollar now at over N500 and the inflation rate at the level it is.

“Even for the new school fees, in at least 11 courses, the school fees are still under N200,000. It is only about three or four courses that the fee had gone up. If you even compare it to the other state universities of medical sciences in this country, our fee is still considerably cheaper.

“In addition, we have given 50 percent discount to the indigenes of Ondo State. That is significant, no other state university has done that. With the way we are, we need a generous fund increase in the university to make things work.