Prospective and current students who applied for a NSFAS bursary from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), might have seen that their NSFAS application was 'unsuccessful'. So what's next?
If you checked your NSFAS application status on myNSFAS and you saw 'unsuccessful', this means that NSFAS found that you don't qualify for NSFAS funding. There are various possible reasons for this:
- NSFAS completed third party checks on your household income and saw that your household income is above the required threshold of R350 000 or R600 000 for people with a disability.
- You're a student who registered at a University before 2018 and because of this, your household income doesn't match that threshold of R122 000.
- You have exceeded the number of years NSFAS is able to fund you according to the N+ rule.
- It is important to further note that, the N+ rule is not based on the number of years that a student has been funded, but on the number of years that the student has been registered for tertiary study at any public university in South Africa.
- If you're a continuing student then they could have found that you failed to meet the academic requirements and your funding was therefore discontinued.
However, if you feel that you should qualify and that you were rejected unfairly, you still have a chance and should submit a NSFAS appeal. This appeal would be you requesting NSFAS to evaluate your application again.
In order to appeal your NSFAS application, you must do so using the myNSFAS portal. You will then need to submit your appeal application along with required information and documents.
Here's how to appeal on myNSFAS:
- Log into your “MyNSFAS" account on www.nsfas.org.za
- Click the 'Track Funding Progress' option
- Check the application progress tabs
- If your application status reflects an unsuccessful message, you may submit an appeal by clicking on the 'Submit Appeal Tab'
- Once you are on the 'Application Appeal' page, you can see the reason for your unsuccessful application status
- You are then able to choose the appeal reason
- Then upload certified supporting documents to support your reason
- Then click 'Submit Appeal'
- You may now track the progress of the appeal on your myNSFAS account.
You must submit your NSFAS appeal within 30 days of seeing the 'unsuccessful' NSFAS application status.
