There is light at the end of the tunnel for students financially excluded from universities after the government announced that an alternative solution for funding was in the pipeline. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme is developing a new funding model to provide loans for students who do not meet the criteria for funding.Addressing the media at the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg yesterday, Naledi Pandor, the Minister of Science and Technology, said: "This new funding model will be tested in the 2017 academic year for full implementation in 2018. We don't know how exactly the model will look, but we do believe that it should be able to pilot," Pandor said.The student aid scheme has allocated R10-billion on top of an additional R4.5-billion from state funding for cash-strapped students this year.Pandor said the ANC upheld the view that the parents who could afford to pay for their son's or daughter's tertiary education should do so.But she said the authorities did not want to go through the process of checking who could or could not afford to pay."Conscience should make you do the right thing," she said.The student aid scheme's new model addresses the challenges of the so-called "missing middle".The "missing middle" refers to students who are above the aid threshold but still cannot afford to pay for tertiary education.Also in Johannesburg yesterday university vice-chancellors met at the University of Johannesburg to call for a peaceful start to the academic year.They said though they were committed to the fight for access to higher education, universities would not survive without fees being paid."Our system is based on fees and if we were to go with no fees then the entire system will be crippled. Universities will close within months," said Wits vice-chancellor Adam Habib."There has been a request around the "missing middle" and that we must wipe out all historic debt and I wish we could do that, but we would be bankrupt within two or three months."We are not in the position to wipe out all historic debt within months."The universities will go into financial crises and the entire system will implode." said Habib...