ABUJA, FCT– The Joint Admissions and Admission Board (JAMB), together with important stakeholders in the tertiary education sector, has officially pegged 150 as the National Minimum Tolerable UTME Score for university admissions for the 2026/2027 academic session.
The choice was the centrepiece of the 2026 annual policy conference on admissions kept in Abuja on Monday, Might 11, 2026.
The conference united vice-chancellors, rectors, registrars, and other heads of tertiary institutions to figure out the regulatory floor for the upcoming admission cycle.
The Regulatory Floor: What “150” Means
The authorized benchmark works as a necessary limit. By law, no Nigerian university, whether federal, state, or private, is allowed to use admission to any candidate who scored below 150 in the 2026 Unified Tertiary Enlisting Assessment (UTME).
The policy conference also approved the following:
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University cut-off mark is pegged at 150 (Upkeep of the 2025 requirement).
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While 150 is the “floor,” individual universities keep the right to set higher cut-off marks (e.g., 200 for competitive courses like Law or Medicine) based on their specific capability and need.
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Polytechnics & Colleges of Education cut-off is benchmarked at 100 to make sure wider access to employment and teacher education.
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Prospects looking for admission into Colleges of Education and Agriculture (non-engineering courses) no longer need UTME for admission into NCE and related programs.
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The minimum expense for a Post-UTME screening kind must not exceed 2,000 (Two thousand naira) only.
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All public universities are anticipated to conclude their admission procedures on or before October 31, 2026, while private universities have been offered up until November 30, 2026, to finish admissions.
- Polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education are to settle their admission works out not behind December 31, 2026.
The policy conference, which is the highest decision-making body for admissions in Nigeria, reached the decision through a transparent process of deliberation and voting.
Read Likewise: JAMB Explains ‘No Outcome Yet’ Status for Some UTME Candidates.
The retention of the 150 mark shows a desire to stabilize scholastic rigour with the need to fill offered quotas throughout the nation’s expanding university landscape.
For the millions of prospects who sat for the 2026 UTME, the verification of the 150 criteria supplies instant clarity for their shift techniques.
Prospects who satisfied the 150 mark but fell short of the particular “high-bar” requirements of first-choice universities are encouraged to explore the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) for potential transfers to organizations with offered slots.
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, restated throughout the session that the board would strictly keep track of compliance, warning that any institution found confessing trainees listed below the nationwide minimum or outside the CAPS platform would deal with serious sanctions.
With the policy difficulties cleared, the 2026 admission workout is expected to start in earnest. Universities are now expected to reveal their specific post-UTME screening dates and individual departmental cut-off marks in the coming weeks.