They promised us a lifeline. In black and white, in their 2024 manifesto, they made a covenant with Ghanaian youth: a “No-Fees Stress” policy.

Free tertiary education for first-year students and persons with disabilities. Academic fees, they said, would be fully covered by state funds.

As a student of International Relations, I recognise a diplomatic pledge when I see one. As a youth activist, I have learned a harder lesson — how to recognise a political bait-and-switch.

Today, that covenant lies in ruins. The University of Ghana has announced an academic fee increase of over 25%.

Let us be clear: this is not an isolated decision taken in a vacuum.

It is the direct and shameful consequence of a government reneging on its core promise and shifting the burden onto students through a fiscal shell game.

We were sold an illusion. What was loudly marketed as a “free first year” has quietly and technocratically been reduced to a 20% refundable arrangement — a discount, not a grant; a loan dressed in manifesto finery. Now, in our second year, the hammer has fallen.

The question echoing across campuses is chillingly simple: what was the plan all along?

The answer appears painfully obvious. Entice students with irresistible slogans. Get us enrolled, committed to our programmes and our dreams.

Then, once we are locked in — a captive market — impose outrageous fee hikes to claw the money back. This is not mere policy failure; it is calculated exploitation. It is a betrayal that reduces the aspirations of Ghanaian youth to a line item on a balance sheet.

This government has chosen to balance its books on the backs of students — a short-sighted and cruel strategy.

We are not statistics or revenue streams. We are future engineers, doctors, teachers, and leaders.

The message being sent is corrosive: students are no longer citizens to be invested in; we are human ATMs to be drained.

As a student of global affairs, I observe how nations that take development seriously invest aggressively in their youth, understanding that education is the bedrock of sovereignty, innovation, and economic power.

Here, our government erects barriers instead. Opportunity is dangled like a carrot, only to be replaced with the stick of crushing debt.

This fee hike is more than a financial burden; it is a psychological breach. It tells young Ghanaians that political promises are written in disappearing ink.

We call on the government to look beyond the next fiscal quarter and into the eyes of the generation it is actively disillusioning. Reverse this punitive hike.

Honour the spirit — not the hollowed-out letter — of the “No-Fees Stress” pledge. Present a sustainable and transparent funding plan for public tertiary education.

Our future is not a negotiating chip. Our education is not a scam. We are watching.

We are organising. And we will remember. The cost of this deception will far outweigh any fee imposed.

Kristy Sakyi is an International Relations enthusiast and a passionate advocate for youth development and educational equity.