“This is a significant contribution which will alleviate some of the debt owed to universities by students and is confirmation that government is sensitive to the plight of students from poor and working-class families,” Higher education and training minister Naledi Pandor said on Sunday.
Her ministry said the allocation was specifically for those students who were funded under the previous NSFAS scheme before significantly improved funding started in 2018.
According to 2018 funding support, students whose combined annual household income was less than $25,000 a year qualified for free varsity education.
In the case of continuing NSFAS-funded students, Pandor said those whose total annual family income was less than $8,700 a year were required to fund part of their costs through family or own funding.
As a result, the amount of funding provided by NSFAS was sometimes insufficient to cover total actual fees and the cost of study, particularly at universities and programmes with high fees.
This resulted in students accruing debt with their institution despite being funded by NSFAS. Pandor said this was the first phase of the assessment of the historical debt owed to universities.
“We have now concluded the first phase of the due diligence and found that 52,514 NSFAS-qualifying students who were registered for the 2018 academic year owed universities $69 million,” Pandor said.