The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) has revealed that over Ksh.40 billion remains unpaid by thousands of former beneficiaries, some of whom graduated more than two decades ago.
HELB Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Monari, in an interview with Citizen TV on Tuesday, disclosed that 51,594 former students who graduated over 20 years ago owe Ksh.8 billion, while another 23,786 who graduated between 12 and 17 years ago owe Ksh.6.6 billion.
The majority of the unpaid loans—totalling approximately Ksh.26 billion—are held by about 230,000 individuals who graduated within the last 11 years. Monari noted that many in this group are still transitioning between jobs or establishing careers, which has contributed to delays in repayment.
“We understand some are still settling down, but this has significantly impacted our ability to recover funds,” said Monari.
He further broke down the repayment performance across professions, highlighting that teachers have the best repayment record. According to HELB, 44,000 teachers are actively servicing their loans, while only 3,500 have defaulted.
In contrast, repayment among accountants is much lower. Out of 20,000 accountants tracked, only 2,420 are repaying and 2,000 have fully cleared their loans. The remaining 18,000, mostly in private practice, have defaulted.
Among doctors, only 18 percent—about 2,115 individuals—are repaying, while 11,701 have defaulted. The legal profession is no better, with only 2,644 of the 23,000 lawyers who received HELB loans actively servicing them.
Engineers are among the worst-performing professions in repayment. Out of 24,883 graduates, only 1,594 have cleared their loans, and a mere 894 are currently repaying.
Monari attributed the low repayment levels primarily to the informal nature of private sector employment, which makes it difficult to track defaulters. “Our biggest challenge is tracing borrowers who are not in formal employment,” he said.
HELB loans, issued at an annual interest rate of four percent, are meant to support students with tuition and are expected to be repaid after graduation.
In its ongoing efforts to recover the debt, HELB recently blacklisted 71,806 loan defaulters. According to Monari, the total outstanding amount—Ksh.40 billion—is sufficient to fund the education of around 289,000 students in colleges and universities for one academic year.
