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 will happen regarding repayment of the NSFAS loan for a student who exceeds the N+1 rule?
The NSFAS N+ rule looks at the duration of NSFAS funding. N+ can be seen as an equation for calculating the number of years a student would be allowed to be funded by NSFAS.
The N+ Rule for universities is based on the duration of a student's registration within the higher education sector.
Strategic Enablement Executive at NSFAS, Vuyokazi Mafilika, explained:
We do consider the N+1 rule as it assists us in determining whether the student is likely to repay the loan.
Mafilika continued to explain, "We will assess if that student has completed an undergraduate qualification. We will only fund them if they are planning to undertake a postgraduate qualification."
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.
