Defaulting could deny your child Helb funds

Students seeking financial aid from the Higher Education Loans Board and whose parents are defaulters will only access the money once their parents start to repay their loans.

Helb Chief Executive Officer Charles Ringera said a number of parents, who are defaulters, were guaranteeing their children to get loans from Helb yet they had not repaid money that was lent to them when they were students.

He, however, said the students would be awarded the loans the disbursement would be withheld until Helb got a commitment from the parents.

Mr Ringera was speaking on Tuesday during the first biennial conference on the State of Higher Education at Kenyatta University, which entered its second day.

“Last year, out of the 34,000 applicants for loans that we received, 16,000 parents guaranteed their children. Of the 16,000, we discovered that 6,000 were loan defaulters,” said the chief executive.

He also raised the alarm over the use of Helb cash by students to bet, saying that the habit should be stopped at once.

“We have had two incidents that resulted in death,” said Mr Ringera.

The chief executive also disclosed that under credit information sharing, defaulters would be tracked until they repay their loans.

Some 76,000 students out of 84,350 will get cash from October amounting to Sh3.1 billion