The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, has directed Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian public universities to urgently diversify their institutions’ funding sources and strengthen their Advancement Offices to attract alternative resources beyond government allocations.
Alausa gave the directive at the National Advancement Forum 2026, where he expressed concern that only four of Nigeria’s 68 federal universities were currently making meaningful use of alternative funding opportunities such as research grants, endowments, alumni donations, philanthropy and industry partnerships.
The minister described the situation as unacceptable, urging Vice-Chancellors to make resource mobilisation a core responsibility of university leadership.
“Government funding is not enough. Universities live, function and excel on blended funding,” Alausa said.
He urged university leaders to move beyond administering government allocations and actively build relationships with prominent individuals, alumni, businesses, philanthropists and research funders.
According to him, universities should leverage their intellectual capital to attract resources for laboratories, scholarships, research chairs, innovation programmes and other strategic institutional priorities.
Alausa stressed that the call for alternative funding did not mean the Federal Government was withdrawing its support for tertiary institutions.
He said the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had demonstrated its commitment to education through budgetary allocations, infrastructure investment and other interventions.
The minister noted that the Federal Government currently funds personnel costs in full, while universities retain 75 per cent of their internally generated revenue and continue to benefit from direct and special interventions from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund.
He said the existing government support should provide a foundation for universities to develop diversified, sustainable and resilient funding systems.
Advancement offices to report directly to VCs
To strengthen resource mobilisation, Alausa directed university Advancement Offices to report directly to the Office of the Vice-Chancellor rather than the Registrar.
He instructed Vice-Chancellors who attended the forum to communicate the directive to their respective institutions immediately.
The minister also directed that Directors of Advancement should have a minimum internal tenure of five years, renewable where appropriate, to enable them to build long-term relationships with donors, alumni, industries and other funding partners.
“Advancement Office operation is a professional job,” he said, describing advancement officers as professional fundraisers who require institutional support, stability and the confidence of university management.
Alausa also called on universities to improve alumni engagement by creating functional databases and deploying technology to maintain lifelong relationships with graduates in Nigeria and abroad.
He said effective alumni management was essential to identifying, engaging and mobilising graduates as long-term institutional partners.
Alausa highlights Tinubu administration’s funding reforms
The minister recalled that before the current administration, some research and endowment funds had been moved into the Treasury Single Account, TSA, creating challenges around access and affecting confidence in the management of such resources.
He said President Tinubu subsequently directed the development of a framework that would allow research and endowment accounts to be moved from the TSA to commercial banks of choice.
According to Alausa, the move created greater flexibility and confidence in the management of university research and endowment resources.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has met you beyond halfway. He has given you the leverage and the opportunity to do your jobs well. You must now take advantage of it,” he told the Vice-Chancellors.
The minister expressed disappointment that many universities had yet to fully exploit the opportunities created by the administration.
He warned that institutions that failed to diversify their funding sources could struggle to sustain growth, research and academic excellence.
FG plans national framework for university financing
Alausa said the Federal Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Nigerian Higher Education Foundation, NHF, would move beyond training and capacity building to develop a comprehensive national framework for sustainable tertiary institution financing.
He said the framework would cover endowment governance, accountability, research grants, Advancement Office structures, alumni giving, industry partnerships, philanthropy incentives, revenue management and transparency.
All public universities, he added, would progressively be onboarded onto the framework.
Under the framework, each institution would be expected to build an endowment, establish an effective advancement structure, maintain a functional alumni database, improve its capacity to attract research funding and develop productive relationships with industry, philanthropists and other strategic partners.
The minister stressed that transparency and accountability would be critical to the success of university advancement, noting that donors, alumni, businesses and research funders were more likely to sustain support for institutions they trusted.
He clarified that the objective was not to replace government funding or make universities dependent solely on internally generated revenue, but to create diversified and resilient financing systems that complement public funding.
Alausa assured that the Federal Ministry of Education would continue to provide policy direction and an enabling environment for stronger university financing, while expecting university leaders to take greater responsibility for mobilising resources.
He said the ultimate objective was to build Nigerian universities capable of attracting competitive research funding, engaging their alumni, developing productive industry partnerships and mobilising philanthropic support to sustain academic excellence over the long term.
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