Paying for a child's university education is supposed to be something to be proud of. This term, for a lot of Kenyan parents, it has felt more like a gamble. Public universities were shut for a month in October by a nationwide strike, and a return-to-work deal was signed on October 30. Barely a week later, the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) is talking about walking out again. Parents are left wondering whether the whole calendar is about to fall apart, and they're the ones who end up covering the cost.
Start with rent. Most students live in private hostels off campus, and landlords charge by the month or by the semester. The meter kept running all through the strike. Now that universities plan to stretch semesters into December and January to make up for lost time, parents are getting hit with extra accommodation bills they never planned for.
Then there's the money that went on food and upkeep. For four weeks, many students stayed in their college towns with no lectures to attend, still eating and still spending. Parents kept sending money and got nothing in return.
For families with a child in final year, the delay has its own sting. Graduation is now likely to slip into mid-2027, which means a later start to job hunting and more months of supporting a grown child.
It also takes a toll on the students themselves. They prepare for exams, then classes stop. They go back on Monday, then hear on Wednesday that lecturers might strike again. Parents say the constant stop-start is wearing their children down and killing their motivation.
And then there's all that idle time. Plenty of students didn't go home during the shutdown because the fare was too high, so they were left alone in the city with nothing to do. Parents worry about what that can lead to, from peer pressure to depression.
Behind the latest threat is a fight over how to pay lecturers the Sh20 billion they were promised. UASU is unhappy with a government proposal to link salary increases to student tuition fees and module enrollment. Parents can see where that road ends. If universities have to raise the money themselves, fees will go up. Many families already feel the new higher education funding model has put them in the wrong band, so another round of fee hikes to settle a labor dispute is the last thing they want to hear.
With December around the corner, plenty of homes are bracing for a very different holiday season. Instead of a normal break with the kids back home, plans have changed, travel budgets are tight, and a January semester might open to empty lecture halls. Parents want one thing: the Ministry of Education and the lecturers' unions to settle this for good. Education should be a ladder that moves a family up, not a gamble that depends on the next strike.
