As students prepare to enter and return to universities across the country they may be faced with increased tuition and accommodation fees.
This comes after many public universities have proposed tuition fee increases of between 5% and 7% which they say will allow them to cover the cost of inflation which is currently standing at about 7%.
Student representatives have criticized universities for the proposed fee increases saying that it will not only affect students but it will also affect the livelihoods of families.
Many student leaders have conducted meetings in order to ensure that students with historic debt are allowed to register for the academic year.
The Student Representative Council (SRC) of the University of Witwatersrand stated that the university has demanded that 50% of students' historic debt should be paid off before they are allowed to register.
Thus, the SRC has planned to launch a fundraiser in order to raise R1 million that will be used to pay off students' historic debt and clear them for registration.
If the SRC achieves the R1 million target then Wits University has agreed to match it with another the R1 million to contribute to the historic debt.
There is also concern about missing middle students who are unable to receive funding from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) as they are considered to be too rich to be funded by the government but they are too poor to afford tertiary education.
Many go into debt trying to fund their studies and fall prey to scams by credit lenders in order to pay tuition fees.
Student leaders have organized protests against the increases in tuition fees as they believe many students will be left without tertiary education.
They have called on the Department of Higher Education and Training to implement a limit on fee increases.
