Financing higher education in Tanzania through students' loans scheme and its impact on equitable access

For the past three decades, African higher education (HE) has experienced several challenges spanning from financial austerity, affordability, accessibility, and academics brain drain, to dilapidated educational infrastructures. These challenges have not only limited access to HE on the continent but also has created social inequality in accessing HE. Although Tanzania has witnessed notable development in terms of HE access due to recent massification policies, inequality in accessing its HE as a result of financing it through student loans scheme still a challenge. Using Tanzania as a case, this paper examines how the financing of HE through the Students' Loans Scheme has been narrowing or widening the social inequality among students. The study on which the paper is based subjected secondary and primary data to discourse analysis to provide evidence on how HE financing through students’ loans scheme has increased access to HE and how inadequate financing of HE through the same creates social inequality in Tanzania, hence undermining the global efforts toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Findings show that the current financing modalities of HE in the country have, to some extent, widened access, on one hand, but have created social inequality among those with the ability to pay and those financed by the state against those without the ability to pay and not financed by the state on the other hand due to lopsided financing modalities. We recommend to the government to re-examine its HE financing mechanisms to have robust funding for all needy applicants regardless of their degree programmes and social-economic status (SES).