The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) has advised students who sat their 2025 KCSE examinations and are awaiting placement to universities and colleges to prepare key documents ahead of the opening of the loan application portal in July.
In a notice issued on Wednesday, HELB urged prospective applicants to organise the required documents early to avoid last-minute challenges once the loan application window opens.
The board said applicants will need a valid email address and mobile phone number, as well as their KCPE and KCSE index numbers, together with the years they sat the examinations.
Students will also be required to upload a passport-size photograph in JPEG, JPG or PNG format and provide a copy of their National ID card or Maisha Card.
For applicants who are still minors, HELB said a birth certificate in PDF format will be required during the application process.
Those who benefited from sponsorship programmes while in secondary school have also been asked to prepare copies of their sponsorship letters.
In addition, applicants will be required to provide their parents’ National ID numbers and registered mobile phone numbers as part of the application requirements.
Students whose parents are deceased will need to upload copies of death certificates in PDF format.
HELB further directed applicants to prepare details of two guarantors, including their ID numbers and registered mobile phone numbers. Parents may also serve as guarantors.
The notice comes weeks after HELB Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Monari announced that applications for student loans are expected to open in the second week of July, subject to the completion of placement exercises by the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS).
“I want to assure all students, parents and stakeholders that they should be able to apply for their loans online when we open. We are just waiting for KUCCPS to complete their placement so that we can open, most probably by the second week of July,” Monari said during an interview on KBC’s Sema na Spox programme.
Once the portal opens, first-time applicants will be required to register through the HELB student portal before submitting their personal, academic and financial details.
The government has allocated Ksh56.7 billion to HELB in the 2026/27 budget to support higher education financing as the board continues to implement the new student funding model.
