NELFUND Moves to Prevent Students from Collecting Loans While Parents Pay Fees

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) is planning new measures to improve accountability in its student loan scheme, including a system that will allow parents to confirm whether their children’s school fees have been paid.

NELFUND Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, announced the plans during a press briefing on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. He said the organization had identified cases in which students received loan support but continued to rely on their parents to cover their tuition fees.

Sawyerr said the organization would strengthen its payment procedures and educate students, parents and tertiary institutions on how the scheme operates.

"This comment is based on our recognition that there are so many students out there who are double-dipping. They are taking from NELFUND and still stressing their parents" ” he said.

How NELFUND Plans to Keep Parents Informed

According to Sawyerr, NELFUND plans to introduce an arrangement that will enable parents to verify whether their children’s school fees have been paid without necessarily accessing the specific amount involved.

The measure is expected to improve communication between beneficiaries and their parents, particularly where families remain involved in financing students’ education.

NELFUND also plans to organise re-education workshops across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones to explain changes to the loan scheme and address misunderstandings among beneficiaries and participating institutions.

Sawyerr said the exercise would go beyond the fund’s usual sensitisation campaigns by focusing on changes to payment procedures and the responsibilities of stakeholders.

He also urged media organisations to help communicate the changes to students who might not be reached through the regional workshops.

NELFUND Explains How Its Payement System Works

NELFUND Executive Director, Mustapha Iyal, explained that the fund uses students’ application identification numbers and wallet numbers for institutional payment processes rather than personal bank account numbers.

He said upkeep allowances are handled separately and transferred to beneficiaries’ personal bank accounts through payment channels including NIBSS Instant Payments and Paystack.

Iyal noted that delays could sometimes occur during upkeep payments because transactions involve external financial service providers.

He also disclosed that the payment system’s pilot phase involved about 400,000 students, with approximately 20,000 additional students recorded between the previous week and the week of the briefing. According to him, the system processed transactions for nearly 5,000 students daily.

Where Students Can Download NELFUND Payment Receipt

Iyal said beneficiaries could download receipts from the NELFUND platform after their school fees had been processed.

However, he explained that receipts issued by the fund differ from those provided by individual tertiary institutions. Schools maintain their own procedures for issuing payment receipts and the clearance documents students may need for departmental registration and other academic activities.

Read Our Previous Report on How To Apply For Nelfund 2026

The clarification comes as NELFUND continues implementing the Federal Government’s student loan programme which is designed to ease the financial burden of tertiary education.