The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) will start processing the payments to institutions and paying student allowances from Friday.
NSFAS said in a statement on Tuesday that it had received the first tranche of its budgetary allocation for the first quarter of the financial year.
It said: “An official communication has been sent to all institutions on the allowance payment process. The institutions that have complied with the 2022 approved NSFAS eligibility criteria and conditions for financial aid will receive payment from NSFAS.
“The communique from NSFAS further requests institutions to abide by the funding rules set out in the NSFAS eligibility criteria and conditions for financial aid when disbursing funding to students.”
NSFAS said students qualify to apply for a bursary if:
- You are a South African citizen;
- Your combined annual household income does not exceed R350 000 per annum;
- You are a Sassa grant recipient;
- You are registering for the first time for an undergraduate qualification at a public university or you are registered at a TVET college for one of the national certificate vocational or report 191 programme;
- You are applying to study at a public university or TVET college for a qualification;
- You are an already registered university student with an annual household income of less than R122 000 per year;
- You have passed grade 9 and 10 to receive NSFAS funding to study at a TVET college;
- You have passed grade 12 to receive NSFAS funding to study at a university.
In his Budget speech in February, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana confirmed that more funds would be allocated to NSFAS.
The allocation of more funds comes as a welcome relief for higher learning institutions after Godongwana announced that the Treasury would release additional funding to cover students who are struggling financially.
“In 2017, the government announced a policy for fee-free higher education. We are announcing an additional allocation of R32.6-billion for financial support to current bursary holders and first-year students under the National Student Financial Aid Scheme,” Godongwana said at the time.
– SAnews.gov.za
Also read: More funds for NSFAS and job-creation programmes
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