The Commission for University Education (CUE) has released new data showing how university students in Kenya were distributed across academic domains in 2024, with education- and business-related courses accounting for the largest share of enrolment nationally.
According to the CUE 2024/2025 University Statistics Report, Kenya’s total university enrolment stood at 628,541 students pursuing degree programmes during the year, spread across public and private chartered universities, constituent colleges, and institutions operating under Letters of Interim Authority.
The report shows that Education Arts emerged as the most popular academic domain, enrolling 104,747 students, making it the single largest field of study in Kenyan universities. Business studies followed closely with 94,491 students, while Education Science ranked third with 53,797 students. Together, these three domains accounted for a substantial proportion of the national student population.
CUE reveals the number of student enrolments by domain
Several other disciplines recorded enrolments exceeding 20,000 students, placing them among the most subscribed courses nationwide. Engineering enrolled 29,727 students, while Social Sciences had 28,575.
Arts registered 28,402 students, Information and Computer Technology enrolled 26,544, and Humanities had 26,281 students. Other domains above the 20,000-student mark included Education (other), with 24,945 students, and Mathematics and Statistics, with 20,827 students.
The report further indicates a second tier of programmes with enrolment ranging between 10,000 and 19,164 students, reflecting strong but more specialised demand.
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These included Agriculture (19,164), Administration and Management Studies (19,028), Medical Studies (15,939), Computer Science (15,577), Mass Communication and Journalism (14,012), Nursing (12,581), Law (10,666), and Physical and Related Sciences (10,084).
Enrolment drops sharply in more specialised and niche domains. Fields with fewer than 10,000 students included Allied Health and Clinical Sciences (9,436), Architecture and Built Environment (8,644), Public Health (5,474), Environment (4,673), Security Services (2,478), Veterinary Studies (2,238), and Manufacturing and Production (1,797).
The smallest enrolments below 1,000 were recorded in Fisheries, Dental Studies, Complementary Therapies, and Transport Services.
CUE notes that the enrolment patterns reflect Kenya’s overall higher education structure, where Public Chartered Universities dominate student numbers, enrolling 469,688 students (74.7 per cent) of the total, compared to 144,007 students (23 per cent) in Private Chartered Universities.
The remaining students were enrolled in constituent colleges and institutions with interim authority. These enrolment patterns sit alongside mounting pressure on teaching staff across the university system.
Teaching staff in universities
The report shows that the total number of teaching staff rose modestly from 14,349 in 2023 to 15,383 in 2024, representing a 7.2 per cent increase. Despite this growth, the national student–teacher ratio stood at 1:39, meaning one lecturer serves an average of 39 students.
Staffing pressures were most pronounced in public chartered universities, which employ 10,555 lecturers, accounting for 68.61 per cent of the national teaching workforce. In these institutions, the student–teacher ratio worsened from 40.77 in 2023 to 44.36 in 2024.
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By contrast, private chartered universities employed 4,286 lecturers (27.86 per cent) and recorded an improved student–teacher ratio, falling from 42.83 to 33.96, indicating better staffing levels relative to enrolment.
Universities operating under Letters of Interim Authority (LIA) in 2024 employed fewer teaching staff than in 2023.
“LIAs had a decline in teaching staff, dropping from 674 in 2023 (4.55%) to 301 in 2024 (1.96%).”
Public university constituent colleges, on the other hand, had 175 lecturers, and private constituent colleges employed just 66.
The report shows wide variation in staffing capacity across institutions, with long-established, multidisciplinary universities carrying the bulk of both student enrolment and academic workload.
CUE notes that enrolment remains heavily concentrated in a small number of academic domains and institutions, while staffing growth has not kept pace uniformly across the sector.
According to the Commission, the data was collected from 78 universities through the University Education Management Information System (UEMIS) following student placement by Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), as part of efforts to improve the reliability of national higher education statistics.
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