The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a government bursary which funds the studies of disadvantaged South African students who wish to study at public universities or TVET colleges.
NSFAS covers a variety of courses at these tertiary institutions but do they cover online undergraduate courses?
The answer is yes they do, however the course must be offered at a public university or public college and the applicant must be pursuing their first degree.
The NSFAS bursary will cover the costs of tuition, registration, accommodation, transport, meals and other living costs.
Thousands of students are funded by NSFAS, as part of the South African government's plan to ensure that all disadvantaged students who are academically eligible are able to pursue their tertiary qualification.
In order to qualify for NSFAS funding you must meet the following requirements:
- Must be a South African citizen.
- Can be a SASSA grant recipient.
- Applicants whose combined household income is not more than R350 000 per annum.
- Persons with a disability whose combined household income is not more than R600 000 per annum.
- Applicants who first registered at university before 2018 whose household income is not more than R122 000 per annum.
Students will be covered by NSFAS as long as they achieve academic success in their degree. However, NSFAS has the N+ rule which means that students have N+1 years to complete their degree.
N” is minimum number of years allocated to complete a qualification (i.e. record time). The “+1” refers to the extra year that a student may need to complete the qualification (making the maximum time).
