BLENDING PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FUNDS FOR SUSTAINABLE STUDENTS’ HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Blended finance has largely untapped potential for public and private actors to work together to dramatically improve the scale of investment. The emergence of student housing has brought increased awareness of opportunity for partnership by different academic institutions with the private sector, for the financing of student housing in Nigeria. In view of this, this study assessed blending public and private funds for sustainable students‟ housing in southwestern, Nigeria. The target population for the study comprise of Physical Planning Development Unit (PPDU) and students of the selected Federal Universities. Data was obtained with the aid of structured questionnaires administered to one thousand, five hundred and one (1,501) students in the three universities viz; University of Lagos, University of Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo University, as well as from three (3) PPDU in the three universities. The data collected were analyzed using both descriptive statistics (percentage frequency tables, line graphs, weighted mean score and relative satisfaction index) and inferential statistics (Kruskal Wallis test, Mann Whitney U-test and Linear Regression Analysis). The result of the descriptive statistics revealed that although University of Ibadan displayed a better adoption of blended finance than University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University displayed the highest adoption of blended finance. It was also revealed that based on the quality of non-blended hostels, students showed a very high satisfaction with the hostel fees, power supply and number of occupants while a high level of satisfaction was shown with water and power supply in blended hostels. The result of the linear regression analysis revealed that the type of finance (p= 0.000) (positively) significantly affects the quality of hostel. The study concludes that the type of finance significantly affects the quality of student‟s hostel. It implies that a better finance result to a better quality of hostel.