Cape Town – Students wanting to apply for financial assistance from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) will have an extra two weeks to do so.
The deadline for NSFAS applications was originally set for Wednesday, 31 January 2023, reports the Citizen. The new deadline is 15 January 2024.
The announcement of the extension follows a meeting between the NSFAS board, led by acting chair Professor Laurens van Staden, and the South African Union of Students (SAUS), led by president Yandisa Ndzoyiya, to discuss the scheme’s state of readiness for the beginning of the academic year,
They also announced that the new NSFAS Loan Scheme – which targets students whose families earn between R350,000 and R600,000 a year (the so-called ‘missing middle’) – will accept applications from Friday, 2 February 2024 to 15 February 2024. Those who’ve already applied for bursaries under the existing scheme need not submit a new application under the new loan scheme, they said.
“All students who did not meet the bursary scheme eligibility criteria [but] meet the loan scheme eligibility criteria will be automatically offered a loan for their consideration,” they said.
As of 30 January 2024, NSFAS had received 1.7 million applications, according to SAgovnews.
Most of those, 940 682, had been provisionally funded, while 269 915 were awaiting evaluation and 232 559 were being processed. About 50,000 were withdrawn by the student and another 136 500 profiles were created but never completed.
“NSFAS has rejected 102 201 applications; 1 093 appeals have been lodged so far,” Van Staden said.
NSFAS and the SAUS agreed that funding decisions would continue to be communicated as and when applications were processed, with the applications portal being updated upon confirmation of the funding decision.
“NSFAS will upon making the funding decisions commence with the appeals process in order to ensure that appeals decisions are communicated to students and the institutions on time,” they said.
The application forms can be accessed on the NSFAS website on www.nsfas.org.za.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Picture: Twitter/@myNSFAS
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Compiled by African Insider
