Thousands of South African students rely on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to pay for their tertiary education tuition fees. Many students have been patiently waiting for NSFAS to open up intake applications for the 2023 academic year.
In a tweet, Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande has stated that the 2023 Nsfas applications will soon commence.
I will soon be announcing the 2023 opening of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) application season.
According to the 2022 funding report, A total of 708,110 students secured funding from Nsfas during the 2022 academic year.
Nzimande says that 204,747 of these students are registered at TVET colleges whereas the remaining 503,363 are registered at university institutions.
A total of 259,735 new applicants were recorded and returning students who are continuing their studies make up the remaining 448,375.
The minister says that a total of 140,492 applications for funding in the 2022 academic year were unfortunately rejected.
The students’ applications were rejected for various reasons. According to the report, 64,331 of them were turned down because they lacked sufficient documentation to support their request for funding.
“47,658 applications have been rejected for exceeding the financial eligibility threshold and 18,023 applications have been rejected for having already achieved the highest level of qualification that NSFAS funds.”
Nzimande adds that 10,423 applications were rejected for having exceeded the N+ rule and 57 for and 57 for being non-compliant to the academic pathways of the TVET college sector.
Nsfas has encouraged students to keep an eye on their social media platforms as an official announcement on when the 2023 applications open will soon be made.
