The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has disbursed funding for the 2025 academic year, with billions allocated to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and universities.
This was revealed during a recent National Council of Provinces Committee (NCOP) Education, Sciences and Creative Industries meeting.
NSFAS provides comprehensive bursaries and student loans to deserving students enrolled in approved academic programmes. This funding covers tuition and registration fees. Students also receive several allowances for food, accommodation, and learning materials.
University NSFAS Payments
NSFAS confirmed the upfront payment of R3.7 billion to universities at the commencement of the 2025 academic year. This money was allocated to pay several allowances including personal care, living expenses, travel, books, and accommodation allowance.
They explained that the upfront payment to universities was made based on the total amount of the 2024 academic year and represented an estimated 10% of the total amount paid to universities.
NSFAS's registration upload system opened on 3 March 2025 and will close at the end of March. This will allow institutions to submit student registration data to NSFAS and enable the payment of allowances to students.
To prevent delays, an additional R2.18 billion was paid to universities on 7 March 2025.
Payments for NSFAS allowances were distributed to South Africa’s 26 public universities due to a shift in NSFAS’ allowance payment policy. Following the termination of direct payment service providers, universities were tasked with paying allowances to students.
Several universities unveiled their unique allowance payment plans.
TVET College NSFAS Payments
Unlike universities, TVET College will not be tasked with paying student allowances with NSFAS opting to use their in-house banker to distribute payments to students. Students are required to upload their bank details to the myNSFAS platform to ensure timely payment of allowances.
NSFAS has paid more than R640 million to TVET colleges to cover the tuition fees of funded students. This payment was made in the first month of 2025.
2025 Tuition upfront payment of R641,013,350.00 made to TVET Colleges on the 10th of January 2025.
NSFAS says the R641 million paid to TVET colleges accounts for 20% of each college’s annual tuition allocation.
The bursary scheme added that tuition and allowances are paid based on valid registration data. The registration upload period started on 3 March 2025 and students whose registration data was uploaded would have received allowance payment on 7 March and 14 March 2025.
Another allowance payment run will be made on 28 March 2025.
NSFAS Allowance Payment Increases
NSFAS recently received an additional R1.8 billion from the National Treasury.
Direct allocations to universities increase by 1,5% to R48,4 billion and the funding of the country's 52 TVET Colleges increases by 4,4% to R14,2 billion.
Part of the funding increase will be used to cover the increase in NSFAS allowances. After the Minister announced an increase of 4% in allowances, NSFAS finally confirmed how much allowance payments will be in 2025.
The increase in allowances was welcomed by stakeholders as payments have not increased in the last three years.
With the general annual increase in the cost of goods and services, the value of student allowances has been diminishing. This must be balanced against the precarious fiscal position of the country where government spending remains under sustained pressure.
The Department of Higher Education (DHET) resolved to increase allowances after considering several factors including the significant recoveries of funds that have been achieved through the Close Out Project and the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) recovery process.
