Students seeking to change universities or courses are facing a fresh hurdle as limited spaces in popular programmes and institutions complicate their efforts to secure their preferred placements.

The scramble for limited slots comes as some of the 268,700 candidates who qualified for placement to degree programmes in the 2025 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) seek transfers before the deadline. The students also do not have much time to know their fate as some universities will start opening this month while others do so early next month.

Of the total qualifiers, the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) placed 202,133 students in degree courses in public and private universities.

The agency then opened a window for those who are unsatisfied with the placement to apply for transfers. Students who missed out on placement are also eligible to apply.

However, some students have expressed frustration that whereas they may qualify for a transfer, limited capacities are locking them out. The receiving university must accept the student and have space in the preferred programme, meaning those targeting in-demand courses could be forced to consider alternative institutions or programmes.

“I was placed in a private university, but I wanted to transfer to the University of Nairobi because it offers the programme I want to pursue in Education. I applied for the transfer, but I was informed that the programme had already reached its capacity. It is frustrating because I qualified for the course, but there is no space available at the university I want to join,” said Mercy Anyang.

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Speaking to Daily Nation, Prof Daniel Mugendi Njiru, the vice chancellor of the University of Embu and also the chairperson of the Vice-Chancellors’ Committee of Public Universities, said universities were currently receiving requests from students seeking to transfer either between institutions or programmes.

He said such transfers could only be approved where the receiving programme had available capacity and the students meet the required cut-off points.

“Each programme in each university has a capacity. Those capacities are approved by the Commission for University Education, so universities cannot go beyond the approved capacities,” Prof Mugendi said.

He explained that a student seeking to move in-between universities could only be admitted if the programmes they desire have space.

“If you wanted to go and do a programme in University X, which has its capacity full, even if you apply there, it will be declined because the capacity has been attained,” he said.

KUCCPS — Limited spaces in popular programmes and institutions complicate issues for students seeking to change universities or courses.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

“If the cut-off point for that programme is, say, forty, and you have not attained that, even if there was capacity and you apply, you cannot get into that programme,” Prof Mugendi said.

The same conditions apply to internal transfers, where students move from one programme or faculty to another within the same university.

Prof Mugendi said universities usually allow such transfers during a specified window, but students must still meet both requirements — availability of space and the required academic threshold.

The capacity squeeze is most pronounced for programmes attracting the highest demand.

“The programmes that have the highest demand are medical programmes, including medicine and clinical medicine. All those medical programmes have a huge demand,” the VC said.

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“Then followed by engineering, and then education. There is a very high demand for education and many universities have already hit the capacity.”

He said a university that had been approved to admit 500 students to a programme could not admit additional students simply because more applicants wanted to join.

“If your capacity was 500, you have already been given 500, so you cannot move,” he said.

Prof Mugendi said the problem was not necessarily a shortage of qualified students, but an imbalance between demand for particular programmes and the number of available places.

“Some programmes have higher demand than others,” he said.

Efforts by Nation to obtain the number of students who have applied for transfers were unsuccessful as the KUCCPS chief executive officer Dr Agnes Mercy Wahome did not respond to our inquiries.

Previously she explained that programmes are automatically removed from the placement portal once they reach their maximum capacity, saying retaining such programmes on the system would create confusion for applicants who could not ultimately secure admission.

“If you see a programme that was there before, maybe you had applied before and you don’t see it there, it means it has the maximum number of students that can apply for that programme. That is what we call capacity. It has reached a hundred percent capacity. If we allow it there and we know you won’t be admitted, it will only cause confusion and disappointment," she explained.

Kuccps CEO — KUCCPS Chief Executive Officer Agnes Mercy Wahome.

Photo credit: File I Nation Media Group

The capacity challenge was brought into sharp focus during the release of the 2026/27 placement results on July 8 2026, when KUCCPS revealed that 6,500 candidates had applied for Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) programmes against only 702 available places across public and private universities.

This meant that thousands of applicants who had expressed interest in medicine could not secure government-sponsored places in the programme, highlighting the gap between demand for some courses and the number of places available.

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Explaining how students were selected for medicine, Dr Wahome said applicants were ranked according to their performance in the relevant cluster subjects, with places filled until the available capacity at each university was exhausted.

“We look at the cluster subjects; mathematics, chemistry, biology and a language,” she said,

Dr Wahome also said changes to the placement process have made applications more realistic. Unlike in the past, when students selected degree programmes before sitting KCSE examinations, applicants now make their choices after receiving their results.

"In the past, everybody believed they would do well and therefore applied for the premium courses. Now they apply after getting their results, so the choices are based on reality," she said.

The shift has reduced requests for placement revisions and increased the number of students securing their preferred programmes during the first application. She attributed this to greater transparency, including publication of previous years' cut-off points, expanded information for applicants, and opportunities for course revision and inter-university transfers.

Health-related programmes continue to attract strong demand, driven by opportunities in both the local and international labour markets.

Teaching courses also remain popular because of employment prospects in Kenya and abroad, while technology-related programmes continue to gain traction as learners respond to evolving workforce needs.

At the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) level, agriculture-related programmes that previously struggled to attract students are now filling to capacity. Courses such as agricultural extension and animal health have become increasingly attractive as more young people embrace agribusiness as a commercial enterprise rather than a retirement activity. Overseas employment opportunities for TVET graduates have further boosted interest.

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mesimiyu@ke.nationmedia.com