Former Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University (LASU), Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, has said public universities may need to charge at least N1 million annually per student if they are to remain financially sustainable amid rising operating costs.
Olatunji-Bello, who left office on September 19 after completing a five-year tenure, said the growing cost of running universities had outpaced the revenue available to many public institutions, making it increasingly difficult to maintain quality without additional funding.
She spoke while reflecting on her tenure at LASU, where she said the university’s internally generated revenue increased from about N3 billion in 2021, when she assumed office, to N13 billion during her tenure.
The former vice-chancellor attributed the increase to the expansion of academic programmes, postgraduate education, digital services, consultancy, short-term courses and other revenue-generating activities.
However, she said the increase in revenue had not eliminated the university’s financial pressures, pointing to the cost of salaries, electricity and other recurrent obligations.
According to her, LASU’s monthly wage bill had risen above N1 billion, while the university’s electricity bill stood at about N140 million every month.
She added that the university also needed to provide about N240 million monthly to augment salaries, illustrating the scale of the financial commitments facing the institution.
“Any public university that wants to sustain financial independence will have to charge school fees of not less than N1 million per student,” Olatunji-Bello said.
Her position highlights one of the central funding challenges confronting Nigeria’s public universities: how to maintain affordable access while meeting the increasing cost of delivering teaching, research, infrastructure and other university services.
Olatunji-Bello argued that universities could continue to increase internally generated revenue, but said such efforts alone might not be enough to guarantee long-term financial stability.
She therefore urged parents to place greater priority on financing their children’s education, stressing that quality university education requires substantial investment.
During her tenure, she said LASU’s student population grew to about 85,000, comprising undergraduate, postgraduate and part-time students. However, she said only about 12,000 students were physically present on campus at any given time.
She said the university currently had capacity to accommodate about 8,000 students through its own hostels and facilities operated through public-private partnership arrangements.
Olatunji-Bello also highlighted LASU’s performance in admissions, saying the university was the most subscribed institution among candidates seeking admission through the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in 2025 and retained the position in 2026.
She said LASU also received N25 million in 2026 for maintaining compliance with regulations of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.
Research and innovation, she added, received greater attention during her administration, including the establishment of a N5 million competitive internal research grant for academic staff.
Seven LASU academics also secured more than N29 million in research grants from the Lagos State Research and Innovation Council between 2022 and 2025, she said.
The university secured a N3 billion TETFund Centre of Excellence in 2026, which Olatunji-Bello described as the only centre of its kind in the South-West.
She also pointed to the digitalisation of several university processes, including admission, screening and certificate collection. Graduates can now obtain certificates online, while an instant verification system was introduced to simplify authentication.
On artificial intelligence, Olatunji-Bello said the university Senate had approved an AI policy to guide the ethical use of artificial intelligence in teaching, research and academic work, including proper citation of AI-generated or AI-assisted material.
She said the policy followed earlier efforts by the university to strengthen its plagiarism rules and research ethics framework.
Infrastructure remained another area of focus during her tenure, with improvements recorded in drainage, sanitation, hostel facilities and other campus infrastructure, according to the former vice-chancellor.
However, she identified the completion of the university’s Innovation Hub and a proposed Central Research Laboratory among the projects she would have liked to see completed before leaving office.
She called on the Lagos State Government to support the completion of the outstanding projects, particularly the Innovation Hub, which she said would strengthen the university’s capacity for innovation and research.
Olatunji-Bello also said her administration maintained industrial harmony by engaging regularly with staff unions and addressing emerging concerns before they developed into major disputes.
She further said LASU had maintained its position as the highest-ranked university in West Africa under the UI GreenMetric World University Rankings for several years and had secured a vice-chairmanship position within the ranking system.
With a new administration now expected to take over the university’s leadership, Olatunji-Bello said her successor would need to sustain ongoing projects while strengthening LASU’s research, infrastructure, financial capacity and academic standing.
Her N1 million proposal, however, places the question of university funding at the centre of the conversation over the future of Nigeria’s public higher education system, particularly the balance between keeping universities accessible to students and giving institutions enough resources to meet their growing financial obligations.
