Makerere University’s Office of the Academic Registrar has issued a formal reminder to all students about fee payment deadlines for Semester Two of the 2025/2026 Academic Year — and the reactions from the student body have been immediate, raw, and deeply telling about the financial pressures Uganda’s university students are navigating daily.
The notice, signed by Academic Registrar Prof. Buyinza Mukadasi and dated April 10, 2026, reminds students that all tuition and functional fees must be fully paid by the 12th week of the semester — May 5, 2026 — or a 5 percent surcharge will be applied to any outstanding balance. Semester Two examinations are scheduled to commence on May 18, 2026, and only students who have fully paid their tuition will be able to access their examination permits.
The University Fees Policy, as restated in the notice, stipulates two key requirements. First, all continuing students must pay at least 60 percent of tuition fees and 100 percent of functional fees at the beginning of each semester before they can proceed with registration. Only fully registered students are permitted access to university services, including examinations. Second, all students must complete payment of 100 percent of tuition fees by the 12th week of the semester.
Students who have not completed payment by May 5, 2026 will face a 5 percent surcharge on any outstanding balance — an additional financial burden on students who are, in many cases, already struggling to meet the original fee requirement.
The notice landed on social media and immediately drew responses that cut to the heart of what fee payment demands mean for ordinary Ugandan students and their families.
One student directed their response directly at Vice Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe, writing: “One week, my parent is being chased off the street for trying to earn a living. The next week, my university is threatening surcharges I can’t afford. It feels like the world is closing in from every side. When did education become a luxury for the lucky few?”
The comment is not hyperbole. It reflects a reality that thousands of Makerere students live — families scraping together fees from informal sector income, market trading, boda boda riding, and small business activity that is itself subject to the kind of enforcement crackdowns that have repeatedly disrupted livelihoods across Kampala. When that income is disrupted, university fees become an impossibility. When fees are unpaid, surcharges compound the problem. The cycle is well known and poorly addressed.
Emorut Philip Okunku, posting under @philip_emorut, took a more institutional angle in his response to the Vice Chancellor: “Makerere University is not like a primary school or secondary school that today we are in Makerere, next academic year we are in Mbarara, and our final year we are in another. Designate for us an office that is responsible for listening to tuition problems — not just demanding.”
His point is precise and worth taking seriously. Students at Makerere invest years of their lives in a single institution. They deserve a dedicated, accessible, and empowered office where tuition-related hardships can be heard, assessed, and responded to with solutions — not just reminders of deadlines and consequences.
The fee payment notice arrives at a moment of acute financial pressure for many Ugandan families. It also arrives days after Makerere’s new 92nd Guild President Kadondi Gracious — who campaigned explicitly on the issue of student financial welfare — was confirmed as the election winner. One of her core manifesto commitments was the full implementation of the 60 percent tuition policy to ensure students are not denied examination access over partial fee balances. The university’s notice reaffirms that policy in its current form, but the gap between the policy’s letter and its lived experience for students in financial hardship remains significant.
The 5 percent surcharge for late payment is particularly contentious. For a student whose family has struggled to raise even a portion of the required fees, adding a penalty on top of an existing shortfall is not a motivator — it is an additional barrier.
The key dates from the Academic Registrar’s notice are as follows. All outstanding tuition and functional fees for Semester Two, Academic Year 2025/2026 must be paid by the 12th week of semester — Tuesday, May 5, 2026. A 5 percent surcharge will be applied to any outstanding balance after that date. Semester Two examinations commence on Sunday, May 18, 2026. Only students who have fully paid their tuition fees will be able to access examination permits via the student portal or from their respective College Registrars.
Students who are experiencing genuine financial difficulty are encouraged to approach their College Registrars proactively, rather than waiting for the deadline to pass and the surcharge to be applied.
Kadondi Gracious is scheduled to be sworn in as 92nd Guild President on Wednesday April 15. The fee payment crisis — playing out publicly, one student social media post at a time — is exactly the kind of issue her campaign promised to confront.
The students who voted for her are watching. And some of them are running out of time.
