The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has announced that only approximately 1 300 students have been approved for loan funding for the 2025 academic year. This revelation, made during a recent National Council of Provinces Committee (NCOP) Education, Sciences and Creative Industries meeting, has raised concerns among prospective students.
NSFAS is a crucial lifeline for South African students, providing comprehensive financial aid to those pursuing tertiary education. This includes:
- Bursaries: Covering tuition and registration fees for qualifying students from low-income households.
- Loans: Introduced in 2024, aimed at "missing middle" students who don't qualify for bursaries but still require financial assistance.
- Allowances: Covering essential living expenses like food, accommodation, and learning materials.
NSFAS Loan Applications
For the 2025 academic year, NSFAS received over 65,000 loan applications. However, only a small fraction, approximately 2%, have been approved. This significant discrepancy raises the question: why such a low approval rate?
A major factor was that over 41,000 loan applicants actually qualified for NSFAS bursaries. NSFAS prioritizes bursary allocation for those who meet the financial criteria.
Only 1,321 applicants met the specific loan eligibility criteria, which includes meeting the "missing middle" income threshold and having no prior loan defaults.
To date we have 1321 eligible loan applicants that have passed the financial and academic eligibility and are not previous loan defaulters.
800 applicants were disqualified due to defaulting on previous NSFAS loans. Over 1 000 students were rejected for exceeding the "N+rule," which pertains to the maximum allowed study duration.
2,380 applicants failed to meet the required academic standards. Approximately 8,770 applications are pending academic verification, and 328 are being processed by the ICT department.
NSFAS Loan Payments
According to the Department of Higher Education (DHET):
NSFAS is in the process of making all payments for the 2024 loan applicants by no later than the 31st of March 2025. 2024 Payments can only be made once all the required information is received from the institutions.
NSFAS has confirmed that approved loan recipients will receive their payments by the end of March 2025.
