During a media briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Blade Nzimande, Minister of the Higher Education Department, revealed that 70% of university students and 90% of TVET College students are funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
NSFAS funding has increased from R21.4 million in 1991 to R48 billion in 2023. Now, applications for 2024 NSFAS bursaries are now open and will close on 31 January 2024.
So far, 1.5 million NSFAS applications have been received. Nzimande said that NSFAS has provisionally funded 657 703 of these students, majority of them being Sassa recipients.
NSFAS anticipates that additional applications will be received before the NSFAS deadline.
Applicants are reminded that a NSFAS consent form must be submitted to verify information from third parties such as the employment status and income level of the applicant's parents to check eligibility. Should no form be submitted, the student will be disqualified from NSFAS funding.
However, Sassa beneficiaries don't have to submit this form as no financial eligibility checks are done for them.
Outstanding 2023 NSFAS Allowances
It was revealed that thousands of students are yet to receive their allowances for the 2023 academic year. Nzimande said:
I call upon NSFAS along with the affected institutions to ensure that they speedily resolve all these outstanding cases. While this is being resolved, I urge institutions not to deny NSFAS funded students with outstanding payments to register during the current funding cycle.
I have noted with concern that the main reason for the outstanding payments is due to reconciliations that NSFAS has been engaged with institutions, predominantly because of registration data changes. NSFAS needs to be more strict in 2024 on how it manages the registration adjustment process and institutions ought to submit their registration information accurately and timeously upon first submission."
For 2024, institutions must submit registration as soon as they are allowed to.
The Minister said that registration data for these outstanding NSFAS allowances must be submitted by no later than 31 March 2024.
