In 2023, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) announced that they would start offering the NSFAS Missing Middle Loan as part of their Comprehensive Student Funding Model.
This NSFAS loan is for both undergraduate and postgraduate students and is geared towards students who don't qualify for NSFAS bursaries.
What happens to the NSFAS loan if a funded student passes on during their study?
Strategic Enablement Executive at NSFAS, Vuyokazi Mafilika, explained:
Our current process will be that we propose that those loans be written off by the accounting authority or the board.
Once students are approved, they would need to sign a NSFAS loan agreement. If the students perform well, up to 50% of the student loan can be converted to a bursary.
Rejected NSFAS bursary applicants will automatically be re-assessed for eligibility under the missing middle loan scheme.
NSFAS missing middle loans will have a particular emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programmes, constituting 70% of beneficiaries. The remaining 30% will be allocated to Humanities and social science programmes.
