In a recent study by Dr. Pius Okigbo it was revealed that in 1979 a university student cost the public purse some 80,869. Indeed a1location to one student rose to 87,676 in 1980 in nominal terms. Last year (1990) it had fluctuated to 84,452. In real terms, however, the allocation was only 8536. By the same study each student is supposed to cost the public purse about 848,482 i.e. to cater for his feeding, medicare and books. In the past ten or so years there have been complains that the level of education financing by Government in general and that of university education in particular is far from adequate. This situation according to many is partly responsible for the falling standard of education in Nigeria. This research looks at the problems of financing university education in Nigeria with a view to identifying the areas that need to be addressed and offer possible solutions. The Ahmadu Bello University is used as a case study. The financial operations of the University are examined for the period from its inception in 1962 to 1992 with a view to establishing whether or not it has been funded adequately. v Except for the two Universities at Ibadan and Lagos all the other four First Generation Universities were established owned and funded by the former Regions. The other two were owned and funded by the Government of the Federation. This situation continued from 1962 until 1975 when the Federal Government of General Hurtala Mohammed took over the other four Regional Universities. Between 1975 and 1992 not only did the Federal Government took full responsibility of these Universities but the Country witnessed an unprecedented plorifiration of Universities from six to thirty two. Twenty of them are Federal while nine are states owned. This means there are more Universities than the thirty states in the Country. The case of Ahmadu Bello University is examined in detail in chapter three. In this chapter, the University's sources of finance are looked into vis-a-vis Government Grants and Internal Revenue. Grants from the Northern Regional Government and later Interim Common Services Agency (ICSA) from University's establishment to 1975 and Grants from the Federal Government from 1975 to 1980 are considered. The University went from full funding during the period 1962 - 1975 to as low as 48% of its requirement in 1979. vi The research also focust attention on the efforts made by the University towards generating Internal Revenue to supplement its fast dwindling Government Grants. Revenue generating ventures were established by the University towards this objective. The financial operations of these companies are examined with a view to ascertain their performances in terms of profitability and financial contributions to the University. A complete financial analysis is made for the University for a ten years period (1983 - 1992) in chapter four. This covers both Government Grants and Internal Revenue. Although the University was found to have been able to generate the minimum 10% of its recurrent expenditure internally, government grant fell short of the expected 90%. Indeed, in 1991 the grants recorded the lowest ever at 58% of the recurrent expend!ture. Although the University efforts towards internal revenue generation continue to yield results, the quantum of its financial needs outgrows the internal revenue level.