university debt south africa 2024-2025

university debt south africa 2024-2025

This page has information on university debt south africa 2024-2025.

DEBT MANAGEMENT FOR STUDENTS

Studying can be an expensive activity. As an undergraduate student, you can expect to pay between R25 000 and R35 000 per year at any of South Africa’s universities. You can expect to pay nearly R50 000 for select courses if you study at a private institution.

Depending on your background, students are more reliant than ever on loans to pay off these high tuition fees. Universities across the country are concerned about the millions of rands owed each year. This does not include the R300 million guaranteed by the government for impoverished students through NSFAS. Based on their final academic records for the year, students who apply for an NSFAS Loan are usually granted 60% of their loan as a bursary. Students who do not perform well academically, including exclusions from returning the following year, are left in debt. (See also NSFAS STUDENT LOANS)

• Universities are as important to the economy as the country’s state-owned enterprises.
• It is also simple to draw a straight line between Eskom’s debt and the failings of our burnt-out economy, which has been subjected to load-shedding for 15 years. When Eskom is allowed to fall further into financial disarray and is unable to maintain its aging infrastructure or retain the people with the necessary skills, the lights go out.
• We can all feel it. Work comes to a halt, dinners are served cold, and even the most gentle hearts become enraged.
• Today, students and universities are held hostage by debt, which has accumulated to more than R16 billion and is increasing at a rate of about R2 billion per year.
• When compared to the debts of some of our other public institutions, this amount may appear to be a drop in the bucket. This explains why we might be more concerned with, say, Eskom, which has watched the debt owed to it by municipalities balloon to more than R46 billion. This is in addition to the staggering R369 billion owed by the state utility to its lenders.
• However, allowing universities to collapse under the weight of debt will result in more than just lights going out. First, there is a dimming in the eyes of students, many of whom are finding the burden of the fees struggle too heavy to continue. The flame of despair threatens to ignite whatever spark remains. And universities become hotbeds of sporadic unrest that dies out when the struggle becomes too exhausting.