South Africa

Campus Strife: Flash Analysis

Wits: 27,000 out of 37,500 students need some form of financial aid in 2021

Wits: 27,000 out of 37,500 students need some form of financial aid in 2021
Wits students protest in Braamfontein. The university experiences annual protests as demand for financial aid outstrips the supply. Photo:Felix Dlangamandla/Daily Maverick

The university shows why student debt should be scrapped – but by whom?

In under five years, student debt at the University of the Witwatersrand has ballooned to R1-billion, shooting up from R405-million in 2016. By 2020, it stood at R1.062-billion, with R538-million regarded as bad debt.

Total debt owed to universities is R9-billion, according to Professor Jonathan Jansen of Stellenbosch University. 

The chart below shows how Wits debt has grown as growing unemployment has forced students to seek financial aid. Out of a student complement of 37,500, 27,000 require some form of financial aid.  

 

The university provides support amounting to R1-billion a year in a mix of funds from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), the University Council and from donors. But this week’s protests, which are exploding largely at Wits and the University of Johannesburg (UJ), show even these amounts are insufficient.

Wits and UJ are among the best-endowed universities because they are in the economic heartland of Johannesburg, while the rest of the 23 tertiary institutions targeted for protests are likely to be in a more parlous financial position. 

Covid-19 has added to the hardship. Wits established a R20-million hardship and Covid-19 relief fund and 1,000 students applied for assistance, with 750 granted emergency hardship funding for food, data, transport and other forms of sustenance. Wits funds 10,200 NSFAS students at an average of R68,650 a year and 14,000 donor-funded students a year, while the council supplements 4,500 students at R24,500 a year.

Even with this mix, the university experiences annual protests as demand outstrips the supply of funds.

Jansen has argued that the government should cancel student debt up to the end of 2020, while Carol Paton, writing in Business Day, has reported that NSFAS will have to be recapitalised by R6-billion this year but that this will overshoot the fiscal framework Finance Minister Tito Mboweni achieved in the 2021 Budget. DM

Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Rudd van Deventer says:

    While I understand the need for Student Funding, does it come ahead of social grants, public housing, the myriad other beneficiaries of state spending or Covid vaccines?? I am not so sure that it rates where the students would like it to be, or should! Definitely before SAA!

  • Calamity Jane says:

    That picture on your infographic is UCT, not Wits.

  • Andrew Blaine says:

    Before one starts a business it is essential that necessary funding is secured, not just offered/promised.
    What are we teaching our youth, even those qualified and properly funded?
    If you want something shout loud enough and break things and you will be rewarded?
    Some flawed lesson?

  • Andrew Blaine says:

    Considering the size of the debt, the first year failure rate (as it applied when I was there) and the number of students in financial difficulty, would it be too big a step to ask how many of these students are repeating their year of study?

    • M D Fraser says:

      I doubt you’ll get a straight answer to that question. Not PC. In fact many students repeat several times, they’re using NSFAS funding as a form of ’employment/income’. The only ones who should receive funding are those that pass a proper entrance exam and then further when they pass each year.

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.