By Opeyemi Quadri 
ABUJA, Sept 29 (EdubaseNG) – Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) said on Monday it will shut its application portal for the 2024/2025 academic session on Tuesday September 30, 2025 and open a new cycle for 2025/2026 in October.
The closure, which marks the end of the programme’s second full cycle, will allow the fund to process pending applications and continue upkeep payments to beneficiaries.
NELFUND said the portal for fresh applications will reopen in the second week of October and remain open until January 2026. Institutions have been directed to update student records on the Student Verification System (SVS) to enable access.
Applications left unverified by institutions after Oct. 8 will be automatically cancelled, and affected students will have to reapply under the new academic session. The fund also warned that it will publish the names of institutions that fail to verify students’ records on time.
Upkeep disbursements for 2024/2025 will continue until November, but students must reapply for the 2025/2026 session to remain eligible.
“Announcing the closure of the current application portal is a necessary step to prepare for the next cycle,” said NELFUND Managing Director Akintunde Sawyerr. “We remain committed to removing financial barriers for students and to working with institutions to ensure no eligible student is left behind.”
NELFUND said students should work closely with their schools to complete applications on time and avoid missing out on interest-free loans.
At the time pf publication, the disbursement dashboard of the student loan agency shows that NELFUND had disbursed N61,333,682,305 as institutional fees while the sum of N46,352,360,000 had been paid to students as upkeep loans, making N107,686,042,305 as total loan disbursed since loan portal launched on May 24, 2024.
The portal has also received 839,465 applications with 581,878 student has benefited since May 2024 to date (September 29, 2025). All these applications were received from 231 institutions across the country.
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Editorial Staff