Students around South African have been waiting a long time to finally receive news about when the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) would open its applications up for 2022, and now that news has arrived with 2nd November 2021 as the opening date and 7th January 2022 as the closing date.

“It is official, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) Board Chairperson Mr Ernest Khosa have announced the 2022 application dates. Are you ready to apply Mzansi?” NSFAS writes.

Nzimande has also confirmed this on his official Twitter account (see the embed below).

As we reported on yesterday the Minster visited NSFAS to check on the upgrades of key systems to ensure that that the organisation could smoothly process applications.

In the past the rush of students all trying to apply at the same time has lead to server overloads and other problems impeding the process, so these upgrades were necessary even if they caused external problems such as scammers trying to students by offering them early applications.

These scams have been warned about yet again along with the date announcement.

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (@myNSFAS) will open applications for 2022 funding on Tuesday, 02 November 2021 and close on 07 January 2022.

I urge students to apply on time and ensure that all supporting documents are submitted. #NSFASfunding #NSFAS2022

— Minister Blade Nzimande (@DrBladeNzimande) October 28, 2021

While NSFAS prides itself on offering funding opportunities to learners of all ages, the 2021 Matric class will likely be a decent chunk of those applying when Tuesday rolls around.

They will need to do so between writing papers as the Matric exams have started already.

The 2021 Matric exam season goes until 6th December so there is at least around a month of time before the end of the examinations and the closing of the NSFAS funding window.