Boost for tertiary students as NSFAS allowance increased by 4% for universities and 46% for TVET colleges

The department of higher education & training has raised the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) allowances in response to the increasing cost of living in the country.

Minister Dr Nobuhle Nkabane announced on Friday that the DHET — working with NSFAS, Universities South Africa (USAF) and student formations in the country — had decided to increase the student financial aid body’s allowances for university students by 4%.

“We have considered the cost of living, which is very high, as well as some of the socioeconomic challenges that our people are facing every day. So we’ve decided to then adjust student allowances for this financial year to 4%,” she said on SABC.

To attract more students to explore the offerings available at TVET colleges, Nkabane said they have decided to increase the allowances in that sector by 46%.

“To ensure equity and address the issues of social justice, the living allowance for students at TVET colleges we have increased them from R10,000 per annum to R14,600 which is a 46% increase in our TVET sector, with the universities sitting at 4%. So that is the message that we want to send to our student formation and the broader family of our post-school education and training in South Africa.”

She said the decisions were taken with the intention to respond to the needs of the learners and students as well as to change the size and shape of the education system in the country.

This comes after the department visited a number of higher education institutions where they checked with the universities, as well as the student bodies, on their preparedness for the 2025 academic year.

During her oversight visit to the University of KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday, Nkabane was told of the need to address the issue of student accommodation after growing safety concerns, particularly in off-campus residences, which are managed by NSFAS, including allegations of rape and gender-based violence.

The latest scandal is that landlords are demanding sex from students at eThekwini TVET college in exchange for accommodation as delays by the student financial aid body persist.

NSFAS administrator Freeman Nomvalo reiterated that they, along with the institution, had immediately launched an investigation into those incidents and that they would communicate their findings on conclusion of the investigation.

“The steps we’re going to take if that is found to be true is that we will start the process of blacklisting those kind of service providers because that is not something that we’re encouraging.”

He said they would assist the students to file charges against the perpetrators and urged other students to report similar issues, through their leaders, so that they can be assisted and have these matters investigated.

UKZN SRC president Siyabonga Mlondo warned that the next student uprising in the country could be prompted by the lack of student accommodation.

“There is a crisis coming across South Africa which is student accommodation. The next uprising will be because of students accommodation and we have to look into that. We’ve already seen that the block grant to the university has been decreasing which creates so many problems for certain universities. I think by now we should be building residences to capacitate institutions,” he said.

Nkabane said she was considering taking the running of student accommodation away from NSFAS and giving it back to the higher education institutions.

“USAF is busy engaging with NSFAS and the department because I gave them that task to see how best we transfer that responsibility back to universities because I can see we don’t have capacity. That we’re receiving these complaints every day means there is a problem so we’re going to hand this responsibility back to universities but they must also comply.”

She was confident the newly appointed NSFAS board will finally fix the governance issues which have plagued the scheme for years.

“It will not be business as usual. We don’t want to see anyone looting money of our poor students in our lifetime. We want to clean the system and leave a good legacy. Others are saying we’re closing taps but we’re not closing any taps: those taps are open only for our learners to benefit, not for business people to loot and enrich themselves,” she said.

“We said we want to bring credible leaders who are going to turn around the institution and I’m proud to say I believe the board that we have is the one that is going to change the current situation.”

Among the changes that Nkabane is making to increase access to the sector, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, is that of paying to apply to higher education institutions.

It had emerged during her oversight that prospective students in KwaZulu-Natal were paying R250 to Central Applications Office (CAO), a private company that manages applications. Nomvalo had estimated the number of applications to CAO for 2025 academic year to be 172,000 which meant the company pocketed about R43m from those applications while being aware that there were limited spaces in these institutions.

Nkabane said she would scrap the application fees.

“I don’t want to see any student pay for application fees to access higher education which is a constitutional requirement. That is one of the directives that the minister is going to issue in the near future.

“There is no way when in 1995 we took a decision as the people to say the doors of learning and culture shall be open. We must see it, we must feel it, and we must live it.”

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