Nsfas warns it may exclude thousands of eligible students due to a ballooning R14 billion funding shortfall.
More than 100 000 eligible students could be excluded from funding by the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas), which is facing a serious budgetary constraint.
The situation is so dire that the SA Union of Students (Saus) is calling for government intervention to save the educational future of poor students who rely on state funding to sustain their education.
Nsfas is pinning its hopes on National Treasury’s medium-term budget to close the gap.
100K students could be excluded from Nsfas
The situation was laid bare during a briefing by Nsfas leadership, which warned that the 2026 university budget faced severe constraints, with only about 520 000 students qualifying for funding, while about 100 000 eligible students could be excluded.
A Nsfas financial report indicated that the scheme’s 2025 budget deficit had risen from R11.6 billion to nearly R14.0 billion after second semester registrations.
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The situation had reached such a critical stage that a technical team has been appointed to investigate the matter, including how to prevent a crisis.
The team, which comprises the department of higher education and training, Nsfas, National Treasury, department of planning, monitoring and evaluation and the Presidency, is expected to design enrolment planning reforms and a sustainable funding framework report for the Cabinet before year-end.
Saus national spokesperson Thato Masekoa said the union was alarmed to learn that Nsfas was confronted by a massive funding shortfall.
‘Moral and political failure’ – Saus
He said the crisis was not just a budgetary issue, but also a moral and political failure that strikes at the core of SA’s democratic promise of equal access to education.
“For years, students have been made to carry the burden of government inaction, corruption and mismanagement.
“We cannot continue to allow the dreams of poor and working-class students to be crushed under the excuse of ‘budget constraints’, while billions are lost to inefficiency and waste.
“Education is not a privilege; it is a constitutional right and a public good that must be protected at all costs,” Masekoa said.
Saus demanded that Treasury urgently intervene in the midterm budget to ensure that no student is left behind.
R45bn owed to Nsfas
Nsfas acting CEO Wassen Carrim said “the transition from loans to bursaries in 2017 had resulted in the collapse of Nsfas’ loan recovery systems and protocols, and a failure to pursue outstanding debts.
“But no loans had been written off and a loan recovery strategy had been introduced to recover about R45 billion owed to Nsfas.”
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