The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), alongside key stakeholders in Nigeria’s tertiary education sector, has approved 150 as the minimum admission benchmark for universities for the 2025 admission exercise.
The decision was reached on Monday during the 2026 Annual Policy Meeting on Admissions into Tertiary Institutions held in Abuja.
The benchmark, officially referred to as the National Minimum Tolerable UTME Score, sets the lowest score candidates must attain to be considered for
admission into universities across the country. Institutions are not permitted to admit candidates who score below this threshold.Despite the uniform benchmark, universities retain the autonomy to fix higher cut-off marks depending on their admission criteria and competitiveness of programmes.
The development mirrors last year’s admission guidelines, where universities also adopted 150 as the minimum benchmark, while polytechnics and colleges of education maintained 100 as their baseline scores.
The benchmarks were finalised after extensive deliberations and voting by heads of tertiary institutions, including vice-chancellors, at the policy meeting.
