This is the time of year when the recurring issues of academic and financial exclusions at higher education institutions surface. This has seen some students given access and others not; and where difficult choices are made between equally pressing priorities. All this has to be done while the playing fields remain uneven.
In the past few years two key processes occurred that have influenced the ability of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to meet its ambitious redress aims.
Firstly, more financially needy students qualify academically each year for access. Secondly, as the scheme depends for its success on the repayment of the money after graduation by earlier cohorts of recipients, the importance of academic success has been brought into stark relief.
The NSFAS has always argued that the money should be allocated to the neediest students with the best academic potential, and has limited the period of funding to one year more than the minimum required for successful completion.
The sector cannot meet the aspirations of all those who now qualify for admission. And though NSFAS funds are the largest source of financial support to the increasing pool of qualified applicants, the scheme cannot meet the demand.
We need to resolve the essentially political question about whether we should be spreading available funding to as many students as possible or if the principle of full funding for fewer students is a better idea.
The answer lies in what is being measured. If access is the only concern, then spreading the funding is easier to defend. But if the creation of an intellectual space in which an individual can realistically be expected to achieve academically is the aim, then for many South African students, partial funding is only barely better than no funding.
The solution lies in full funding — even if this is for fewer students. The ideal is to increase the pool of financial aid so that more students get more funding.
Funding is the responsibility of the state, the individual, the institution, and the private and public sectors that need the skills. The means/ financial needs test administered on behalf of the NSFAS frequently determines a level of need way in excess of the scheme’s determined cap on the individual package a student can receive.
The NSFAS has always intended that students make some family contribution and that its funding be used only when other sources have not yielded sufficient money. In reality, many students only apply for NSFAS support, having come to learn that it is a relatively easy source of funding.
Universities use their own and private donor resources to make up the difference between the NSFAS-determined cap and the real need. This has resulted in a culture of entitlement that militates against any shared responsibility for financing education.
Tertiary institutions are rapidly losing their own flexibility to respond to the demand. Universities top up NSFAS grants and other forms of financial assistance to students from funds over which they have discretionary control. The sources of these funds are fees and subsidy. Subsidy is a declining source of revenue, with the real value decreasing both year-on-year and relative to the overall expenses of a university.
Fees are limited by the market, by the need to ensure reasonable access and by the political pressure to keep fees down. Most universities effectively face escalating costs, increasing demands and diminishing resources. Continued and growing support for student financial assistance will have to come from operating budgets. These days this means choices between books, academic salaries, research equipment and financial assistance. These are not tenable choices if we wish to remain real providers of intellectual capital.
Here are some tentative, but workable, ways out of the impasse.
Firstly, there is room for much better coordination of the use of available money from government departments. Better use of the NSFAS to channel money from other departments is a good starting point, as is the redirection of unspent human capital development money in other portfolios to higher education.
Secondly, student understanding of options and the responsibility to explore options is underdeveloped and cannot be addressed just through the information pamphlets that accompany application forms.
Perhaps the oft-mooted national application service has a prime role in ensuring that aspirant students have access to information about a range of funding opportunities?
Thirdly, we believe that the banking sector can go even further. We recognise the progress made, but would argue that this progress continues to exclude what the sector itself calls the “unbanked”. Surety and collateral requirements effectively eliminate everyone not in the formal employment sector earning at least R8 000 a month. Options include “futures speculation”-type lending: academically successful students in their final year or years of study could be granted loans against future earnings, rather than in line with the normal banking rules that preclude them from loans when they first register.
Fourth, more stringent recovery of NSFAS loans will quickly increase the money available. While we know that there is communication between the NSFAS and the South African Revenue Service (Sars) in the identification of former recipients with incomes that allow them to begin repaying NSFAS loans, collection of these repayments could be handled through Sars.
For the third and fourth options, the premise is that the success of the economy and of financial assistance schemes is repayment of these loans by graduates who are able to contribute to the economy. Ensuring that as many recipients of aid as possible can graduate is as important as ensuring that once graduated they meet their obligation to pay.
Financing tertiary education is a universal dilemma and is currently being acted out on higher education stages across the globe. For us, as an emerging democracy, the challenge is particularly poignant and the responsibility particularly onerous. A national solution is needed for what is a national challenge.
Professor Loyiso Nongxa is vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand. This is an abridged version of a discussion document in development at Wits
Reduce the burden on the poor
Universities and technikons must ensure they use available resources effectively, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor (below right) said this week.
Sapa reported the minister saying that the increased provision of resources to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) will enable improved support for financially needy students in public tertiary institutions.
For the first time this year, the NSFAS has provided students who qualify in terms of the NSFAS means test for full financial aid support with the registration and other “upfront” costs. But the current level of financial aid provision cannot meet the full extent of the need.
Pandor called on the councils and managements of universities and technikons to ensure appropriate mechanisms and systems are in place for the most effective use of available resources, especially so that the burden on the poor is reduced.
She also emphasised the need for close cooperation between the managements of universities and the student leadership in the development of financial aid policy and its implementation. She expressed confidence that conflict can be avoided if all parties commit themselves to open and transparent processes of engagement and negotiation.