The higher education system receives half the funding it currently needs and it is obvious that most students cannot pay. Although the private sector can assist in a limited capacity‚ only the state can provide core funding for quality higher education. This is the submission made by DA MP Belinda Bozzoli in the National Assembly on Thursday during the debate on the student fee crisis in South Africa. “Everybody agrees that government has messed up on the funding of higher education‚” Bozzoli said.She said the country had one million students crammed into 26 underfunded universities.She said half the students never completed their degrees and most of them could not afford to pay the fees which the universities needed to charge to close the gap."How cruel to lift the hopes and dreams of a million young people while making it so difficult for them to ever be attained."She said if government did not increase its funding of higher education‚ the first thing to go will be infrastructure.“Universities are cutting down on maintenance.”She said without adequate funding‚ lecture facilities will become shabby and IT systems will stagnate.“The second to go will be top academics‚ Bozzoli said.She said top academics were internationally mobile and would find jobs elsewhere.She also said top students will start exiting the system."This has already begun. Yale‚ Harvard‚ Oxford‚ Cambridge and top Australian Universities are already recruiting amongst our matric students‚ and offering them full scholarships. Others will go to private local Colleges."The fee-paying students have the ability to pay for other options. They will and this will only leave universities with less income."She said as the fees base shrunk‚ the vicious downward spiral would speed up‚ with income down‚ classes growing‚ top academics and students leaving‚ and infrastructure shabby and dated.She said President Jacob Zuma and his floundering‚ bickering‚ anti-intellectual government‚ had abandoned the country's precious higher education system‚ its national assets and its young people‚ the future of this country."With the proper political will and financial priorities we can find a solution to the fee crisis plaguing South Africa. We call upon the president to find sufficient long-term funding to stabilise our universities‚ and to find it fast‚" Bozzoli said.Leigh-Ann Mathys‚ of the EFF‚ said a government that loved its youth provided the means to educate it.“Students protesting are not doing so for private jets. They are protesting so that they can get good quality free education‚” Mathys said.She said the government had no interest in building an educated nation.Mathys said without strong intervention by the ANC government to ensure access to higher education‚ the dreams of the majority of bright black people would not be realised.“We need at least R86bn per year to fund higher education.”She said government should provide free higher education until the first degree...