Students will be paying between R31,000 and R120,000 for on-campus accommodation this year, with the cheapest residence found at North-West University (NWU) and the most expensive at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Lectures began at many campuses this week. While some students have settled in, others — including students at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) — have spent several days sleeping outside the District Six campus because of accommodation shortages.
Finding affordable university accommodation is no small matter, as students try to balance convenience, safety and affordability with the realities of debt, food costs and day-to-day living.
For Dakalo Masakona, a master’s student in medical virology at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in Ga-Rankuwa, Tshwane, these factors translate into daily stress. He lives on campus for safety and convenience, but says the cost is crippling.
“Some of the new residences cost about R64,000 a year. That’s above the NSFAS [National Student Financial Aid Scheme] and HWSETA [Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority] cap, so it leads to debt and even financial exclusion,” he said.
“On top of that, we’ve had no cleaning since we moved in and the Wi-Fi is unstable. It makes studying harder than it should be.”
He added that some master’s students were forced to share rooms with juniors, which he described as “frustrating”.
As of March last year, NSFAS pays accommodation costs of up to R65,993 in metropolitan areas and R56,633 in non-metro areas.
However, first-year UCT student Shane Kalakgosi said his accommodation costs were “reasonable”. Kalakgosi, who is studying towards a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery (MBChB) degree, lives at the Leo Marquard Hall residence and pays R79,000 for accommodation, in addition to R44,000 a year for meals.
“I am self-funded this year because some bursaries rejected me and some never got back to me. However, I feel the accommodation prices are affordable,“ he said.
A University of the Witwatersrand second-year BA law student, who asked not to be named, said she had moved off campus last year because of high costs and overcrowding. Twelve students had to share a unit with one kitchen, one shower and one bathtub, she said.
“Being on campus was convenient because I was close to lectures and didn’t have to wake up early. But off campus is much cheaper,” she said.
She now shares a unit with between three and five people. Each has their own room, but they share a kitchen and a bathroom. Her annual rent is R66,000, covered by a bursary. She says her biggest expense is food.
Residence prices vary depending on facilities, with many offering furnished rooms, laundry services, study spaces, computer rooms and sporting and recreational facilities.
At the University of Johannesburg (UJ), residence fees start at R41,940 a year for shared rooms. Its most expensive residences are on its Soweto campus, where annual fees at the Hector Pietersen and Ulwazi residences reach R56,560. Meals are not included in UJ’s tariffs, requiring students to budget separately for food.
NWU is among the most affordable institutions. Shared rooms at the Nelson Mandela residence on the Mahikeng campus cost (per person) R31,050 a year, while single rooms reach about R47,600 on the Potchefstroom campus.
A first-year Wits student, who did not want to be named, said she was paying R9,000 a month for a single, self-catering room at Barnato Hall, where she shares a kitchen and bathroom with other students
At the University of the Free State (UFS), older residences at the Qwaqwa campus are R37,700 a person for shared doubles, and R42,000 for singles. The university’s most expensive accommodation is President Steyn residence on the Bloemfontein campus, where a single room for a paraplegic student costs R111,700 a year.
UCT tops the charts. Catered residences such as Baxter Hall and Avenue Road charge R89,520 for single rooms and R78,690 for doubles, while Fuller Hall costs R96,020. Groote Schuur residence costs R90,990 for singles, while Medical Residence is R101,890.
Self-catering options are more expensive. Bachelor flats at Forest Hill and Meulenhof cost R102,170, while bachelor units at Rondeberg Flats and TB Davie Court reach R120,910 — the highest figure across all universities.
At Wits, residence fees range from R66,000 per person for a double room to R89,693 for a studio apartment at Campus Lodge.
A first-year Wits student, who did not want to be named, said she was paying R9,000 a month for a single, self-catering room at Barnato Hall, where she shares a kitchen and bathroom with other students.
“The price is unreasonable because I need to buy my own groceries, and I am not allowed to have visitors,” she said, adding that the facilities are limited and they do not have access to the pool and the gym.
At Stellenbosch University, costs range from R61,376 per student sharing to R79,358 for a flat.
NSFAS acting CEO Waseem Carrim said on Thursday that allowances and accommodation rates for 2026 were under review and that the scheme would recommend new rates once budget allocations aligned with the national budget process had been finalised.
Carrim said 194,071 accommodation applications had been received across universities and TVET (technical and vocational education and training) colleges. Of these:
- 55,653 have been approved;
- 90,794 are pending institutional review; and
- 53,864 are awaiting landlord approval.
On protests by students at CPUT over housing, he said the university managed its accommodation independently, but that NSFAS had engaged with the university to better understand its challenges.
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