Nigeria’s tertiary education system left more than 700,000 approved admission spaces vacant in 2025, while this has exposed a widening mismatch between available institutional capacity and the millions of young Nigerians seeking places in higher education.
A policy brief by the iRead To Live Initiative found that only 1,009,736 of the 1,716,154 admission places approved for tertiary institutions were filled during the 2025 admission cycle, thereby leaving 706,418 spaces unused.
The figure represents an overall admission fill rate of 58.8 per cent, meaning more than four in every 10 approved places were not taken up.
The findings are contained in the August 2026 report, titled The Admissions Gap: Who Gets into Nigeria’s Tertiary Institutions, and Why It Matters, authored by the organisation’s Executive Director, Jacob Sule.
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The report presents the figures as evidence that Nigeria’s admission challenge is not simply a shortage of spaces. Rather, it points to a deeper problem involving where admission places are located, what courses candidates seek, their qualifications, and their ability to reach available institutions.
The disparity is particularly pronounced outside universities. While universities filled 74 per cent of their approved places, other tertiary institutions recorded a fill rate of just 34.3 per cent.
Universities had 1,060,919 approved places, of which 785,180 were occupied, but left 275,739 vacant.
Polytechnics and colleges of education performed considerably worse; they filled only about one-third of their available capacity.
The report said the figures presented a contradiction in a system where public concern often centres on candidates unable to gain admission, while hundreds of thousands of approved spaces remain unoccupied.
“The tertiary institutions did not run out of room in 2025,” the report noted.
It argued that expanding admission capacity alone would not resolve the access problem.
The findings assume added significance as 2,243,816 candidates registered for the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination. However, the initiative cautioned that the 2026 admission process had not been completed when its report was prepared, which therefore makes a direct comparison with the 2025 admission figures inappropriate.
The organisation also raised concerns over inconsistencies in admission data. It noted that a separate applicant-level table from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board presents the same admission cycle differently.
It urged JAMB to publish privacy-protected admission and performance data broken down by state, local government area, geopolitical zone, gender, subject, and institution.
Such data, it said, would help policymakers determine where access gaps exist and why approved spaces remain unused.
The initiative further called for an Annual Admissions and Access Report after every admission cycle, with JAMB reconciling applicant-level admission figures with institutional capacity to produce consistent year-on-year data.
It also recommended that the evidence supporting the collectively agreed cut-off mark be made public, particularly its implications for access to STEM and non-STEM programmes.
On JAMB’s proposed Bring Your Own Device option, the group urged the examination body to conduct controlled pilots and independent penetration testing before nationwide implementation. It also called for published standards on devices, security, and equity to prevent candidates without suitable personal devices from being disadvantaged.
The organisation recommended wider computer-based testing access and readiness support across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, alongside a free and universally accessible preparation module for candidates.
The report was the first publication of the iRead To Live Initiative as a higher education policy think tank. The organisation said the research was independently produced and was neither commissioned nor funded by any government agency, tertiary institution, or commercial organisation.
