The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has paid out ₦375.28bn in student loans, according to its latest disbursement status report, generated on Monday, November 9, 2026, and posted on the fund’s official X account. The figure covers 1,675,474 student loans, with ₦194.77bn paid to 320 institutions as fees and ₦180.51bn sent directly to students as upkeep.
The new total is ₦19.41bn higher than the ₦355.87bn NELFUND reported in early September, and almost all of that growth came from upkeep rather than fees. For a student waiting on a loan, that split matters, because it shows where the money has been moving in the first weeks of the 2026/2027 session.
Upkeep payments did most of the climbing since September
NELFUND’s September 3 report put institutional fees at ₦192.89bn across 319 institutions and upkeep at ₦162.98bn. Two months on, fees have risen by about ₦1.88bn and one more institution has joined the list, while upkeep has grown by about ₦17.53bn, to ₦180.51bn.
Upkeep is the ₦20,000 monthly allowance paid into an eligible student’s own bank account, separate from the fees NELFUND pays to the school. If your fees were covered but your upkeep hasn’t arrived, check that your bank details on the NELFUND portal are correct and validated, since unvalidated details are one of the reasons the fund has previously given for failed payments.
Applications have passed 2.4 million, and they’re still coming in
The report counts 2,413,879 applications since the scheme opened, including 2,296 received on November 8 alone. That gap between applications and the 1.67 million loans paid doesn’t mean every unpaid applicant was rejected, because some applications are still being processed or are waiting on schools to confirm students.
Fees are increasingly tied to how schools handle billing, and NELFUND has been piloting a school fees token so students don’t pay twice. If your school is pressing you to apply when you’d rather not, our explainer on whether a school can force you to take a NELFUND loan covers where you stand.
The loan roadshow is now targeting parents in uniform and the civil service
Alongside the new figures, NELFUND has started a nationwide sensitisation campaign it calls a roadshow, aimed at workers in 34 ministries, departments and agencies and at families in military, police and immigration barracks. The first stop was the Ministry of Regional Development in Abuja, and the fund says the campaign will go beyond the FCT, including barracks outside Abuja.
Olusola Fowobaje, NELFUND’s Director of SERVICOM, described the drive as “part of NELFUND’s broader commitment to promoting access to educational financing”. Officials at the launch also told civil servants that beneficiaries won’t be barred from travelling or arrested for having a loan, and that applying doesn’t depend on personal connections.
If you’re the child of a civil servant, soldier or police officer and haven’t applied because of those worries, the campaign’s message is that the process runs entirely online. Apply only through the official portal, keep your school and bank details consistent with your records, and watch for the next NELFUND status report to see whether the upkeep figure keeps rising at this pace.
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