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The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) is a state corporation of the Government of Kenya that grants loans to students in Kenyan institutions of higher education. Although officially established in 1995 by the Higher Education Loans Board Act, student loans for higher education in Kenya were granted since 1952, when the colonial government of Kenya instituted the Higher Education Loans Fund (HELF) primarily to assist Kenyan students pursuing higher education outside East Africa.

The Board grants loans, scholarships and bursaries to students admitted into recognised institutions of higher learning in Kenya and East Africa and is responsible for the sourcing and distribution of funds, as well as collection of repaid loans.

Upon its inception, the Board was credited with increasing the number of students granted loans, and particularly increasing access to student loans by students of private universities, who were previously ineligible for loans on the assumption that they were from wealthy families. Nevertheless, in recent years, the Board has faced difficulties, most notably in collecting loan repayments.

History
The Higher Education Loans Fund (HELF), set up in 1952, was a programme by the British colonial government of Kenya to meet the costs of Kenyans pursuing higher education outside the country. After the country gained independence, the scheme was replaced with a project whereby the government sought to directly and freely fund higher education for students. This was implemented on the advice of the Kenya Education Commission, which argued that a highly skilled Kenyan work force was required to keep running the country upon the departure of the Europeans, and was backed by the government in line with the ideology of African socialism. However, facing an economic crisis in the 1970s, coupled with high enrolment in universities and colleges caused the government to restructure its education grants under a loan system similar to HELF, known as the University Students Loans Scheme (USLS).