The Federal Government has extended the student loan scheme to state tertiary institutions across the country.

The Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, Dr Akintunde Sawyerr, who disclosed this in Abuja, on Thursday, explained that the students in the state institutions could apply for the loan facility when the second phase of the scheme commences on June 25.

Data from regulatory agencies’ websites indicate no fewer than 336 state tertiary institutions  students in the country comprising universities, colleges of education and technical colleges will benefit from the scheme.

Figures obtained from the National Universities Commission website indicate that there are 63 state universities.

The National Board for Technical Education on its website listed 54 state polytechnics, 57 state monothenics and 111 state technical colleges.

The National Commission for Colleges of Education’s website shows that there are 51 state colleges of education in the country.

Also, no fewer than 60,000 federal instiutions students have registered on the loan application portal so far.

NELFUND opened its application portal in the first phase of the registration exercise which started on May 24.

The first phase accepted applications from federal tertiary institutions.

About 1.2m students in 226 federal universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and technical colleges were expected to benefit from the first phase.

Data obtained from the NUC and other agencies indicated that the nation has 226 federal tertiary institutions comprising 62 universities, 41 polytechnics, 96 monotechnics and 27 colleges of education.