British universities are in negotiations with the Ghanaian government to recoup outstanding tuition fees after the country failed to deliver on promised funding for scholarship students, many of whom are now in limbo and unable to graduate.

Hundreds of students from Ghana on a scholarship scheme run by their country’s government have been affected by missed and late payments. Some of the payments – which cover both tuition fees and living stipends – have been delayed since before January, leaving students struggling to afford to live and universities desperately trying to recoup lost income. 

The current Ghanaian government, which came to power in January 2025, blamed the previous administration for giving out too many scholarships. There has also been evidence of widespread corruption in the country’s scholarship system, with middlemen offering bribes to officials in return for scholarship letters to students.

The new administration has claimed it has £39 million of debt to clear and a similar situation has emerged in the US with Ghanaian students there reportedly at risk of deportation, leaving the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, which administers the scheme, fighting fires on multiple fronts. 

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The new administration has pledged to get the system under control and repay universities, with the agency’s director recently in the UK in an attempt to agree repayment plans with universities. 

Nana Adom, senior international manager at Anglia Ruskin University, said this was a “good starting point” but anticipated that it would be “probably over a year before the debts are cleared”.

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“Multiple universities have taken the decision to stop accepting students through the scheme,” he added.

In the meantime, universities have been responding to payment delays for scholarship students already enrolled in different ways.

A spokesperson from the University of Portsmouth said: “We have offered some of the students the opportunity to temporarily suspend their studies and return at the next intake as we have been assured that payment will be forthcoming in the new calendar year once the budget has been approved by the government.”

A University of Birmingham spokesperson also said the institution was allowing affected students to continue studying while negotiating a payment plan with the scholarship agency. 

However, Stuart Rennie, an international higher education consultant specialising in Africa, said some institutions have responded more severely, locking students out of university systems, such as libraries, and preventing them from being able to continue their studies or graduate. 

“Where the real issues are coming is universities that have received scholars, but they’re not really engaged in the West African market, so they don’t really know what’s going on,” he said.  

Amira Campbell, president of the National Union of Students, which has been campaigning for more support for these students, said it was “challenging to hold the UK government accountable” and convince policymakers to take some action given the problem lies with a foreign government. 

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Under the UK’s immigration rules, the students also risk deportation for failure to pay their fees. In some cases, Campbell said, students have ended up paying out of their own pocket. 

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“We know visa sponsorship is such a big issue at the moment for universities,” she said, with the Home Office planning to bring in tighter compliance measures that will see universities held to higher standards on metrics like course completion rates. 

“A lot of universities are operating in good faith around this case,” Campbell added. 

But, she said, while some universities can afford to waive payments, not all can, “particularly if they’ve got tens or hundreds of students on this scheme, where they also have a responsibility to meet their expectations under UKVI and as a sponsor of international students”. 

Rennie advised institutions to “really begin to engage in the conversation [with the secretariat] and just try and get some kind of timelines and parameters in place”. 

“If you sit back and wait and hope the money’s going to come in without any engagement, I think the chances of that happening are slim.” 

In Ghana, Adom said the funding problems could jeopardise the future of the scholarship scheme, which describes itself as providing opportunities to “brilliant but needy Ghanaians”.

“Even when [the scholarship secretariat has] cleared their bed, most universities would want to have the assurance that they are in a good financial state before we’ll be ready to accept students from them again.

“[Universities] want to make sure that we don’t have a repeat of what we’ve just had, with students being stranded and putting them in very difficult situations.”

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The Ghana Scholarship Secretariat did not respond to a request for an interview.

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com