The report of the Heher Commission into higher education fees has been submitted to President Jacob Zuma and should, if this were a normal democracy, be made public in the next few weeks.
Whether it actually will be amid the lurking threat of student violence and the chaos swirling around the cabinet and the ANC - including hints that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma might replace Blade Nzimande as minister of higher education - is another story.
Some think release of the report might be delayed for months, and others believe that it was a token move anyway, designed to quieten the student uprisings of 2015-16, and it might never be made public.
The consensus among observers is that if it is actually released, it is very unlikely to recommend that fee-free higher education for all be implemented.
This may well give rise to countrywide protests by those groupings - particularly the EFF - that have committed themselves to the fee-free cause.
But it will be almost impossible for Judge Jonathan Heher to recommend the fee-free option for two main reasons.
First, it will be a substantial additional cost to the fiscus. In 2016, fees paid by students not already supported by the National Students Financial Aid Scheme amounted to some R14-billion per annum, rising with the rise in fee levels.
Second, if the state were to pay these fees, this would entail subsidising the middle and upper classes and depriving the fiscus of R14-billion worth of taxes per annum which could be better spent on the poor.Paying for the fees of the middle and upper classes would in effect increase inequality. The moral and ethical case for fee-free higher education falls upon this point.
But there are other problems of a broader nature.
For one thing, the root causes of the crisis in higher education lie in several institutions, and not just in the fees. Even if full fee-free education were provided, student dissatisfaction and university dysfunction would not go away.
Financial aid scheme funding, for example, remains inadequate even though billions of rands more have been pumped into it this year. A further R10-billion needs to be provided simply to meet current needs.
In addition, subsidies to universities continue to decline, as they have done for the past 23 years, which has given rise to additional pressure on the level of fees. The current subsidy shortfall is about R20-billion per year.
And furthermore, there are significant infrastructure deficits in universities and in colleges in the technical and vocational education and training network.
For example, there is a shortage of about 200,000 beds for student accommodation, which will cost roughly R9.5-billion per year for the next 10 years.
In addition to the R14-billion for free fees, therefore, a viable university system would require a further R50- to R60-billion a year. The state does not have anything close to this amount available and is unlikely to prioritise higher education to this degree anyway.
The only option for the Heher Commission would be to find a middle ground so that increases can to some extent be balanced by savings in various parts of the system.
This is perfectly feasible. The commission should put pressure on NSFASto harbour its resources by focusing on funding high-quality graduates - output rather than input should become its concern...