Could it be that there are so "few Northern Cape high school graduates among students in the two closest regional universities" because the "black (coloured and white) poor" (but talented) students can simply not afford to pay the travelling and accommodation fees to study at remote universities?

Northern Cape high schools are producing excellent university candidates, but most of the time these children’s parents simply cannot afford to pay the travelling and accommodation costs (on top of the tuition fees) for their children’s tertiary studies.

The parents themselves are not earning good salaries, because their parents could not afford to pay the travelling and accommodation fees for their children to study at the “closest” university (that could be as far away as 1000km from within the borders of the Northern Cape). And so the vicious circle continuous…

The human capital in the Northern Cape is getting poorer by the day, in spite of the fact that the Northern Cape is one of the major contributors to the country’s economy in terms of mining activities throughout the province.

Northern Cape Government and Business are seriously being challenged when skilled appointments must be made, because we simply do not have the appropriately qualified candidates to select from and find ourselves “importing” from our neighboring provinces with the Universities.

These “imported” candidates then (sooner than later) leave for promotional posts back to where they came from.

I am a Northern Cape student that is in the very fortunate position to be able to pay for my studies at “one of the closest regional universities”. The monthly travelling and accommodation costs are exorbitant and then it pains me to still leave my family alone over these periods when I have to attend compulsory classes.

Money is just flowing out of the Northern Cape, strengthening the economies of our neighbouring provinces.  It is long overdue that the wrongs done to this province in the past, be corrected. It is better to make a start at building our own University than never starting at all and continuing to deny our children a better future, because we could simply not afford to send them hundreds of kilometres away from home to a “ nearest regional University”.