The long walk to class

For thousands of Kenyan university students, the daily struggle to stay in school is measured in kilometres walked and meals skipped

By Victorine Nekesa

Before sunrise, Brian is already on his feet. Not at the gym, not on a morning jog — but walking kilometres to campus because he cannot afford the fare.

Brian is 21, a university student living well beyond comfortable distance from his lecture halls. Every morning he makes the same calculation: spend on transport, or save for food, printing, stationery and internet access. Transport loses. So he walks.

“I would rather walk and keep the transport money for food,” he says. “Sometimes I arrive tired, but I remind myself why I am here.”

The journey takes close to an hour in good weather. On rainy mornings it is longer, muddier and harder. He arrives with wet shoes and damp clothes, takes his seat and opens his books. Missing lectures, he has decided, is simply not an option.

What appears to be a small daily saving is, for Brian, the difference between eating lunch and going without. Between printing an assignment and submitting nothing. Between staying enrolled and dropping out. When every shilling is accounted for, the mathematics of university survival become brutally precise.

“Sometimes I have to decide whether to buy something for class or use the money for transport,” he explains. “It is not easy, but I focus on why I came.”

His experience is far from unique. Across Kenya’s public universities, students from financially constrained households navigate a quiet daily crisis that rarely makes headlines. They walk long distances, skip meals, defer buying textbooks and take on small jobs to bridge the gap between what their families can provide and what university life actually costs. The struggle is rarely visible in the lecture hall, but it shapes everything — concentration, participation, performance and, ultimately, whether a student completes their degree at all.

The rising cost of living has sharpened these pressures considerably. Beyond transport, students must find money for accommodation, meals, academic materials, internet access and basic personal necessities. For those dependent on limited family support, financial planning is not a budgeting exercise — it is a survival strategy.

Physical exhaustion adds another layer. A student who has walked for an hour before the first lecture of the day is already fighting fatigue before the teaching begins. Day after day, that toll accumulates. Yet Brian says the walk has become something else entirely — not a burden, but a daily act of commitment.

“I know things are difficult now, but I don’t want to give up,” he says. “One day I want to look back and say the sacrifices were worth it.”

His friends have noticed. He arrives tired but participates. He submits assignments. He shows up. Having a clear goal, he says, makes the hard days bearable.

Brian’s story carries a quiet but important message for policymakers, university administrators and anyone who assumes that a student sitting in a lecture hall has simply walked through a door. Behind that presence may be a morning spent walking kilometres, a meal skipped, a sacrifice made invisible by determination.

University education remains one of the most powerful tools available to young Kenyans seeking a better life. But access does not end at admission. For students like Brian, staying in school is itself an achievement — earned one long walk at a time.

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