• NSFAS has received nearly 940 000 applications so far for the 2025 academic year.
• More than 600 000 students have already been provisionally accepted.
• The students are accepting aid from an institution in abject disarray.

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has already received more than 936 000 applications for the 2025 academic year, with tertiary education institutions expected to open across South Africa in early February.

Of those nearly million applications, around 668 000 have been provisionally funded pending institution placement or acceptance, according to the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training.

The announcement comes months after Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane told the portofolio committee that as it current stands for NSFAS, “there is no way we can deliver in terms of our constitutional obligation.”

Per the minister last year, the scheme is dealing with a long list of systemic and structural deficiencies, including a weak and out of date ICT system, poor systems to maintain student data, deep-running allegations of staff corruption, and a lack of solid turn around strategy.

In August, due to system challenges, NSFAS staff had to manually conduct verification checks on student applications to proceed with the sending of funds – a task that then-Administration Freeman Nomvalo said was “impossible.”

Another problem with the system in September saw the scheme postpone the launch of the 2025 online applications window.

Systemic challenges at NSFAS put the academic performance of beneficiaries at risk. They may see funding delays, accomodation challenges and any number of other difficulties while accepting funding from NSFAS.

Chairperson of the Portofolio Committe on Higher Education Tebogo Letsie called on NSFAS to “do its due diligence in processing all the 2025 applications to ensure that all students that are illegible for funding are funded.”

He added that NSFAS must ensure that it stops funding students that should not be funded.

The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Mr Tebogo Letsie, called on the @myNSFAS to do due diligence in processing all the 2025 applications to ensure that all students that are eligible for funding are funded #7thParliament #WeeklyMediaBriefing pic.twitter.com/d5cyOCXn7e

— Parliament of RSA (@ParliamentofRSA) January 16, 2025

“There have been instances where NSFAS, especially last year, wrongfully funded students who were not legible, leading to them being defunded in the middle of the year and taking students out of their studies mid-year causing mental health problems,” said Letsie.

The committee adds that NSFAS is finally ready to launch loan scheme to fund missing-middle students as of 2025, but its “comprehensive student funding model” is not yet in place.