The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) confirmed that more than 1.3 million students qualified for NSFAS funding in 2024. However, only around half of these students have been receiving the funding offered by NSFAS.
NSFAS provides comprehensive bursaries and student loans to deserving learners enrolled in approved courses at universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges. This includes money for tuition and registration fees as well as several allowances for food, accommodation and learning materials.
In a recent presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, NSFAS revealed that almost 1.4 million students who applied for NSFAS funding for the 2024 academic year met NSFAS eligibility criteria. This essentially means that all that was left for NSFAS to do was begin NSFAS payments to the students once they received registration data.
However, the government bursary scheme has only funded just under 750 000 students. This comes at a cost of nearly R34 billion.
NSFAS explains that the discrepancy between qualifying students and funded students can be attributed to several factors including duplication of applications, change of student qualifications and other academic considerations.
The number of students who qualify for funding has been consistently higher than those confirmed for funding. However, there is a slight difference between registration received and disbursements.
NSFAS Appeals
There are also students who NSFAS judged to be undeserving of funding and rejected their 2024 NSFAS applications. Students who feel that NSFAS’ decision to reject their applications are allowed to appeal their rejection.
In 2024, NSFAS received 94 469 appeals, 63% of which have been resolved and closed.
NSFAS says that 58% of resolved appeals remained rejected (24 027),19 236 students were funded and 33 885 appeals were closed.
There are 35 226 unresolved appeals and NSFAS anticipates finalising all these appeals applications by the end of the first week in September 2024. To expedite the finalisation of these appeals, the Administrator has approved overtime for the case workers.
The finalisation of appeals is also dependent on required results from institutions and outstanding documents from applicants.
Incorrect NSFAS Funding
NSFAS also reported that In 2024, the scheme incorrectly funded 11 038 students in total. Almost 2 000 of these students were enrolled at TVET Colleges while the remaining 9,112 were university students.
In past years, incorrect funding has cost NSFAS millions of rands. While efforts have been made to recover funds, early dedication of undeserving students benefiting from NSFAS can save the public purse millions.
