The fate of the 2016 academic year at several universities hangs in the balance because of the threat of further disruptive protests to punch home the demand for free higher education. Final exams are just days away. Yet some top universities remain shut because of violent protesters, who have pulled students out of class and destroyed hundreds of millions of rands worth of precious infrastructure.The ramifications are potentially enormous for thousands of students who are due to graduate and move into the jobs market, next year's intake of first-years, government hospitals and clinics and the broader economy.Some universities are soldiering on with students attending lectures under the protection of security guards and the police.Wits and the University of Cape Town, both hit hard by the protests, are taking extraordinary steps to save the year. UCT has plans to complete its programme without face-to-face teaching, and is creating a ''reconciliation and transformation commission" to bring peace to its campuses.Wits holds a general assembly of students, staff and academics, alumni and others today to debate its stance on working towards free education and the protesters' demand that it be free immediately.Clearly the gulf between the two sides is enormous. The question of who, ultimately, should foot the bill for the tuition costs of poor students is a matter for the government, not the universities. Make no mistake, the goal of protesters will take years to be fully realised in a country with a floundering economy.But some sort of consensus has to be found on campuses right now. Wits and UCT are on the right track, but they need help.Pointing the way forward was the timely intervention, during clashes at Wits on Monday after students voted overwhelmingly to return to class, of EFF national chairman Dali Mpofu, other members of the Black Student Society which Mpofu once headed, members of the clergy and concerned parents...