THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB)’s decision to peg the 2025 minimum cut-off mark for university admission at 150 has drawn reactions from Nigerians across different sectors.
Announced after JAMB’s 2025 policy meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, July 7, the new benchmark brought an end to what had been at least a three-year run of a 140-point minimum.
The ICIR reports that the new 150 benchmark is the first revision since 2022, when JAMB set the cut-off at 140 and retained it through 2023 and 2024.
The Board, in a statement on its official X handle, stated that education stakeholders reached the decision during the policy meeting held on Tuesday.
The body also announced that 100 was set as the minimum cut-off mark for admissions into polytechnics and colleges of education, while the minimum cut-off mark for colleges of nursing sciences was set at 140.
Although JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, stated that no institution was permitted to admit candidates below the thresholds, the Board maintained that institutions and colleges retain the autonomy to set higher cut-off marks than the national minimum.
However, many Nigerians have described the 150 cut-off for university admissions as low, arguing that it sends the wrong message to students in secondary schools and reflects a troubling lowering of academic standards.
They stated that the benchmark was one of the key drivers of poor performance in the country’s tertiary institutions.
Some also pointed out that the problem lay much deeper in the foundational failure of Nigeria’s basic education system, which they said authorities failed to fix.
Alex Onyia, Chief Executive Officer of Educare, while reacting to the benchmark, via his X handle, stated that Nigeria could not build a prosperous nation on a foundation of mass failure and lowered standards.
“JAMB says 150/400 is now ‘good enough for university. That’s 37.5 per cent. In China, 37.5 per cent gets you expelled.
“Then we wonder why our engineers can’t build, our doctors misdiagnose, and our graduates speak gibberish on live TV. This is why Nigerian graduates roam jobless,” he said.
While many blamed JAMB, the examination body clarified that it did not single-handedly set the cut-off. Rather, it stated that the benchmark was jointly agreed upon by institutional stakeholders, including vice-chancellors, rectors, and provosts, during the policy meeting.
Also, a social media user, mrajiabdulwasiu, bemoaned the decision of the education stakeholders, noting that the cut-off mark was “ridiculously low.”
According to him, the vice-chancellors, rectors and provosts want to make money from students’ school fees, with crowded classrooms.
Another user, @Olayinka63045434, said “Nigeria’s challenges stemmed from decades of poor investment in education, outdated systems, and lack of innovation. Excellence isn’t built by score thresholds alone, but by meaningful reform, he stated.
Recall that The ICIR reported that after the resit UTME results were released on May 25, JAMB noted that 1,365,479 (70.7 per cent) out of 1.9 million candidates scored below 200 after both the original exam and the resit.
In the initial results released by JAMB on May 9, 2025, JAMB said over 1.5 million candidates out of 1.9 million candidates who took the exam scored below 200 out of the total 400 marks.
This development led to outrage with many Nigerians calling for a probe into the mass failure.
Following sustained pressure, JAMB investigated the cause of the mass failure and discovered technical and human errors in its system.
The Board registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, consequently apologised for the trauma caused, admitting to errors in handling the examination.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M