• NSFAS is considering a new system of payments to beneficiaries that would bypass universities and TVET colleges.
• They attempted this in 2023 with the digital direct payment system that failed in the most spectacular fashion.
• More than 600 000 applicants in the 2025 academic year have been provisionally funded so far, while just over 200 000 are now fully funded.

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is set to once again embark on a process of changing the way it disburses funds to student beneficiaries after implementing the failed direct payment system in 2023 to remove universities and TVET colleges from the equation.

This is according to the acting director general of the Department of Higher Education and Training, Dr. Marcia Socikwa, who told the state broadcaster that the scheme is set to make a proposal to its new board of directors to disburse payments “directly to them rather than using the current method via the universities.”

If this last line is giving you cold sweats, you’re not alone. Currently, NSFAS beneficiaries are paid directly by their universities, while TVET college students are paid directly into their bank accounts. This system was reinstated after the digital direct payment system and bank account cards were canceled before the end of the 2023 academic year.

It is believed that the scrapped system would have cost taxpayers R1.5 billion over a five-year period, but because it was culled one year in, the costs were likely significantly lower.

“NSFAS is going to encourage the board to consider a cost-effective way of disbursements, such that the middleman [Universities] is not the beneficiary to the detriment of our students. Our students remain first and foremost our key stakeholders, not the middleman,” says Socikwa.

A statement that mirrors the impetus for the failed system as echoed by eZaga, one of NSFAS’ fintech partners at the time. The bursary scheme would eventually sue eZaga and other partners and lose.

The direct payment system was extremely unpopular with students across South Africa during its short tenure, filled with hidden costs for beneficiaries and riddled with corruption allegations that would eventually lead to the firing of then-CEO Andile Nongogo and the axing of the entire previous NSFAS board of directors.

NSFAS gives an update on how many students will be funded in 2025

According to NSFAS, there are now more than 600 000 provisionally funded students registered while around 200 000 are firmly registered and fully funded. The announcement came more than a month into the start of classes in the 2025 academic year.

Overall about 243 000 eligible students have been fully funded through their respective universities and TVET colleges. In January the scheme announced that it had over 900 000 applications, meaning that only about 27 percent of applications have been successful in being fully funded by NSFAS, again, a month into the academic year.

If the provisionally funded students are added, then around 94 percent of all applicants will likely receive funding from NSFAS this year for their studies. So around nine out of 10 applicants have been successful in 2025, provided that every provisionally funded student becomes a fully funded student.

However, this will likely not be the case, as the provisional figure also includes applications that are being appealed according to acting CEO Waseem Carrim. About 70 000 applications have been appealed and NSFAS is still going through the processing of these appeals.

While 97 000 applications have been outright rejected by the scheme, mainly because they did not adhere to NSFAS criteria.

Carrim also revealed that NSFAS has a budget of R48 billion for the 2025 academic year, lower than budgets from previous years. In 2024 the scheme had a budget of R52 billion.

“Of that, about R5.9 billion has already been disbursed to universities representing about 15% of the allocation while an additional R751 million has been disbursed to the TVET colleges and about R8 billion,” he explains.