The Ivory Tower in Ruins: Is the Nigerian University Still an Engine of Social Mobility? By Eugene Navan
The Ivory Tower in Ruins: Is the Nigerian University Still an Engine of Social Mobility?
For months of Sundays, the Nigerian public university was the great equalizer. It was the place where the son of a palm wine tapper from a remote village in Ekiti could sit in the same lecture hall as the daughter of a high-ranking civil servant from Abuja. The degree they both earned was a consecrated ticket out of poverty, a formal handshake with the middle class. But as we come to the closing days of 2025, that sacred social contract is fraying at the edges, perhaps beyond repair.
The current crisis in our public higher education system is often discussed in the dry language of budget deficits, strike actions, and loan disbursement statistics. But to look at it through that lens alone is to miss the human tragedy unfolding in real-time. We are witnessing the slow-motion collapse of the Nigerian dream, where the “Ivory Tower”, once a symbol of meritocracy, is increasingly becoming an exclusive gated community for the affluent, while the poor are left at the gates with a handful of unfulfillable aspirations.
The primary tension today is in the aggressive shift toward the “cost-reflective” pricing of higher education. In 2024 and throughout 2025, federal and state universities across the country implemented “ancillary fee” hikes that, in some cases, saw costs triple overnight. While the government maintains that tuition remains technically free, the sheer weight of laboratory fees, library dues, and accommodation costs has created a barrier that is insurmountable for a family living on the national minimum wage.
When we price education out of the reach of the common man, we are engineering a future of permanent inequality. The brilliance of a mind should not be determined by the depth of a father’s pocket, yet our current trajectory suggests that we are moving toward a system where the “best and brightest” are simply those who can afford the registration portal fees.
The administration’s flagship response to this crisis has been the implementation of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND). In theory, the idea is sound: provide financial support to students so that no one is forced to drop out. However, a year into its rollout, the reality on the ground is far more complex.
There is a growing psychological burden attached to these loans that our policy-makers have failed to account for. In an economy where the unemployment rate for new graduates remains stubbornly high and the “hustle” is often the only available career path, the prospect of starting one’s adult life with a massive debt to the federal government is terrifying. For a student from a vulnerable background, a loan is not a “helping hand”, it feels like a noose. They fear that they are borrowing against a future that is not guaranteed, entering a professional world where the starting salary might not even cover the interest on their debt.
Furthermore, the bureaucratic hurdles required to access these loans have inadvertently created a new layer of exclusion. Students in rural areas with poor digital literacy or those without the necessary “guarantors” find themselves locked out of the very system designed to save them. The result is a lopsided distribution of aid that favors the urban, tech-savvy student while the truly destitute remain in the shadows.
Even for those who manage to stay in school, a second, more insidious question arises: what exactly are they buying?
The funding disputes between the government and academic unions have left our campuses in a state of physical and intellectual decay. Libraries are often stocked with textbooks that predate the internet; laboratories lack the basic reagents for meaningful experiments; and lecture halls are overcrowded to the point of being hazardous. That is to say the least!
When a student pays more for a degree while the quality of that degree plummets, it is a form of educational fraud. We are producing graduates who are “certified” but not “qualified,” equipped with theoretical knowledge from the 1980s for a global marketplace that is already moving into the age of Artificial Intelligence. This disconnect between the classroom and the real world is the reason why many employers now treat a Nigerian degree as a mere “certificate of attendance,” requiring fresh hires to undergo months of remedial training before they can be productive.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of this crisis is the “brain drain” occurring within the faculty. Our best professors, the custodians of our national intellect, are tired. They are tired of negotiating for basic living wages, tired of working in dilapidated offices, and tired of seeing their research ignored.
In 2025, the migration of Nigerian academics to Europe, the Middle East, and even neighboring African countries has reached a fever pitch. When a senior lecturer leaves a Nigerian university for a position in the UK, they are taking a generation’s worth of mentorship and institutional memory. We are left with a system that is increasingly staffed by overworked junior faculty who lack the guidance of seasoned veterans. We are hollow-ing out our own future.
To fix the crisis in public higher education, we must move beyond the cycle of strikes and temporary funding boosts. We need a fundamental shift in how we perceive the university. It should not be seen as a “cost center” to be managed, but as a “strategic asset” to be protected.
First, we must de-centralize the funding of universities. Although federal support is crucial, our institutions must be empowered to build sustainable endowments through industry partnerships, alumni networks, and research commercialization. A university that is 100% dependent on the whims of a central government budget is a university that will never be truly free.
Second, we must prioritize technical and vocational education as a valid alternative to the traditional four-year degree. The obsession with the “BSc” has created an artificial bottleneck in our public universities. Now if we elevate the status of polytechnics and technical colleges, we can reduce the pressure on universities and provide our youth with the actual skills needed to drive a 21st-century economy.
Finally, as I always say; we must restore the dignity of the academic profession. If we want our students to be world-class, we must treat their teachers as world-class citizens. This means salary increasement; it means investing in research grants, providing modern housing, and ensuring that the campus is an environment where the mind can flourish.
The Nigerian child currently sitting in a primary school classroom in Kano, Onitsha, or Akure is watching us. They are watching to see if the ladder of education is still standing, or if we have pulled it up behind us.
If we allow the public university system to become a luxury for the rich, we are failing both the poor and Nigeria as a whole. A nation that abandons its brightest minds because they are poor is a nation that has decided to stay poor. It is time to reinvest in the Ivory Tower, as the engine of our national progress. We must ensure that the dream of a quality education remains alive for every Nigerian, regardless of their tribe, their creed, or the balance in their father’s bank account.
Only then can we truly say that we are building a nation where peace and justice shall reign.
This is part of my effort in making the world a better place for all.
Eugene Nanven writes from Abuja FCT NigeriaÂ
