Nursing Cut-Off Marks and School Fees by Nigerian University (2026/2027)

Choosing where to study Nursing in Nigeria usually comes down to two numbers: can your score get you in, and can your pocket sustain the fees once you’re in. Both numbers vary a lot more than most applicants expect, and the way universities calculate their cut-off marks is often misunderstood. This guide walks through both sides using real, recently published figures as examples.

How university cut-off marks actually work

Before comparing numbers across schools, it helps to understand what you’re actually looking at, and each point below is worth checking carefully against your own documents and plans before you move any further:

• JAMB sets a national minimum UTME score every year, which is the baseline floor to even be considered for most courses, including Nursing.
• Beyond that floor, each university sets its own departmental cut-off mark, which can sit well above the national minimum, especially for competitive courses like Nursing.
• Many universities, UNILAG among them, don’t rank candidates purely on raw UTME score. Instead, they compute a weighted merit score, combining your UTME result, your O’level grades, and sometimes your post-UTME or screening performance, into one aggregate figure.
• This means a university’s published “cut-off mark” for Nursing might be a merit score on a different scale entirely from the 400-point raw UTME score you sat, so always check how your target school defines the figure it publishes.
• Cut-off marks also tend to differ for candidates applying under a state indigene category versus the general merit list, so confirm which category you fall under before comparing your score to a published figure.

A real example: UNILAG’s Nursing cut-off

In a recent admission cycle, the University of Lagos published a merit cut-off mark for Nursing Sciences in the high 70s on its own weighted scale, among the higher cut-offs across its health science courses that year, alongside similarly competitive marks for courses like Electrical Engineering. This illustrates two things worth internalizing: Nursing is consistently one of the more competitive courses at many Nigerian universities, and the published figure is UNILAG’s own merit calculation, not simply your raw JAMB score, so don’t panic if your UTME score alone looks lower than the published number.

School fees: what to actually budget for

Fees vary enormously between federal, state, and private universities, and even university-run schools of nursing differ from university-run Nursing Science (BNSc) departments. A few patterns worth knowing:

• Federal and state university BNSc programmes generally charge far less per session than private universities, though “far less” still means a real amount once acceptance fees, levies, and hostel costs are added.
• Private universities running Nursing programmes typically cost well over a million naira per session once tuition, accommodation, and mandatory levies are combined. Recent guides to Caleb University’s fees, for example, put fresh-student charges between roughly ₦969,000 and ₦2.4 million per session depending on the course, though Caleb does not publish a separate nursing figure online.
• Acceptance fees at private universities are charged once to confirm your admission offer, separate from tuition itself, and the amount varies by institution, so ask for it in writing alongside your fee schedule.
• Additional mandatory charges to budget for include medical test fees for freshers, admission form fees, and hostel accommodation, which is often billed per semester rather than per session.
• Fee figures change from session to session, so treat any number you see online, including the ones in this guide, as a planning estimate to confirm directly with your target school’s bursary or admissions office.

How to compare schools properly

Rather than picking a university on name recognition alone, work through this checklist, so read through each item below slowly and tick off the ones that already apply to your own situation:

1. Confirm whether your target school’s published cut-off is a raw UTME score or a weighted merit score, and ask how it’s calculated if it isn’t obvious.
2. Check both the general merit cut-off and any state indigene cut-off, since these can differ meaningfully.
3. Get a full fee breakdown, not just tuition, including acceptance fee, levies, and accommodation, from the school’s own bursary or admissions office.
4. Compare your realistic budget across at least two or three schools before committing to a UTME first choice, since changing your mind after result release is harder than before.
5. Factor in NMCN accreditation status for the specific programme, since fees mean little if the certificate at the end isn’t properly recognized.

Common mistakes to avoid

A number of avoidable missteps show up again and again in how applicants compare schools, and working through the list below in order will save you from the most common and avoidable setbacks:

• Treating a published cut-off mark as a raw UTME score when it’s actually a weighted merit calculation.
• Budgeting only for tuition and being caught off guard by acceptance fees, levies, and hostel costs later.
• Comparing an old fee figure from a previous session instead of confirming the current one.
• Assuming a lower cut-off automatically means a lower-quality programme, when it may simply reflect differences in applicant volume or merit calculation method.
• Not checking whether your target programme is a Basic Nursing certificate track or a BNSc degree, since fees and cut-offs for these differ substantially even within the same institution.

Final thoughts

Cut-off marks and fees both deserve more scrutiny than a quick online search usually gives them. Confirm exactly how your target university calculates its merit score, get a complete fee breakdown directly from the bursary, and compare more than one option before locking in your choice on JAMB.