NSFAS 'approves' funding for 1.2 million students

NSFAS has rejected over 240,000 applications for government funding because they did not meet financial requirements while others showed poor academic records.

The fund received just over 1.9 million applications for the current academic year and over 1.2 million of them have been provisionally approved. The fund said it rejected 243,113 applications and these included pupils whose parents were deemed to able to afford education fees. 

NSFAS said applications which are rejected can have a second chance at consideration by submitting an appeal and15,174 appeals have been lodged.

Last year NSFAS defunded over 31,000 students after they were found to have submitted incorrect information when applying for funding. The organisation used state departments like Sars, the department of home affairs, the SA State Security Agency and credit bureaus to verify the information of the beneficiaries. 

Addressing the media on Monday, NSFAS acting chairperson Lourens van Staden said through third-party verifications, the scheme has processed about 23,000 applications per day.

“We have prioritised those who have received firm offers of admission from universities or who were enrolled at TVET colleges,” said Van Staden. 

According to Van Staden, as of March 1, 84,225 applications were withdrawn by students and the fund also received 30,728 applications from the "missing middle" category.

Higher education minister Blade Nzimande introduced the first phase of the comprehensive student funding model in February. The "missing middle" category encompasses those from families with incomes between R350,000 and R600,000, unable to access NSFAS bursaries yet struggling to afford tertiary education costs.

The government has earmarked R3.8bn for the loan scheme in 2024, sourced from the National Skills Fund and Setas, expected to assist about 31,884 "missing middle" students.

Van Staden said they had pre-assessed and determined students who pre-qualify for the loan. 

“Communication was sent to the affected students via the student portal, to confirm whether or not they accept for NSFAS to process their loan application.  This is specifically for those students who had applied for a bursary but were above the income threshold for the bursary, but within the loan threshold,” said Van Staden. 

He said the next step was for NSFAS to communicate with institutions to request them to submit admission data for registered students. 

“This data being in line with the requirements of the loan of the 70 vs 30 split in stem and social sciences respectively.  At the completion of this process, we envisage that a total of 31,800 missing middle students will be provided with student loans,” said Van Staden. 

According to the chairperson, due to registration delays in the 2024 academic year, NSFAS requested universities to facilitate February and March allowance payments.

 “Communication was sent to inform universities of this decision and to outline the allowance distribution process for the year. Upfront payments were made to institutions on January 31 and February 29, with most committed to distributing allowances by late February,” said Van Staden. 

The first upfront payments of R2.8bn for universities were to cover book allowances, accommodation and medical students for January. 

“This disbursement does not include the calculation of the tranche payments, which NSFAS will disburse at the beginning of April 2024,” said Van Staden. 

For TVET colleges, R580,150,950.00 was paid as tuition upfront in January 2024.  

Van Staden said an additional R1bn is earmarked for three months’ worth of allowances to be paid based on registration from the January-March period.  

In April 2024, direct payments for the 2024 academic year allowances will begin.  

According to Van Staden, the second upfront payment includes two months' worth of various allowances for February 2024, the total amount required for this upfront is R2.1bn and has been paid.