AS CALLS grow for free tertiary education, institutions say collective student debt has escalated to about R14 billion.
Despite concessions made by universities to allow all students with historic debt to register for this year's academic year, student leaders and universities have acknowledged that the issue needed an urgent solution.
The total student debt as of December 31 at UWC amounted to R445.7m, according to the institution.
For the 2020 academic year, a total of R119m in historic debt was owed to the university.
UCT's cumulative historic debt prior to 2020 stood at R225m. Currently, about 1 900 students had a 2020 fee debt amounting to R77m.
In its 2019 annual integrated report, the University of Stellenbosch indicated that it was owed more than R298m, with some of the student debt dating back as far as five years and more.
Earlier this week, vice-chancellors met Department of Higher Education officials, including Minister Blade Nzimande, to put pressure on the government to find ways to resolve the matter.
"This is a very significant amount of money and cannot simply be wiped out unless some new funding strategy is put in place by the government to address the shortfall," said Universities South Africa (Usaf) chairperson Professor Ahmed Bawa.
Usaf is a representative body of 26 public universities.
At the meeting, Usaf, Nzimande and his team decided that for this year’s registration process, individual universities would use whatever means and mechanisms they had to address the issue with each student, said Bawa.
However, the agreement was on the basis that Nzimande would establish a process to seek a long-term solution for 2022.
"We are anxious that the solution should be an effective, sustainable one," noted Bawa, adding that the capacity of the universities to address the student debt challenge was limited as they also relied heavily on government subsidies and tuition fees.
Some institutions indicated that apart from the "missing middle" students who owed money, some of those who also benefited from state funding through the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) also had outstanding fees.
Senior lecturer at the School of Economics and visiting fellow at the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Study and research associate at the Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre Dr Seán Muller believed that the issue of affordability could not be addressed outside of context.
NSFAS will receive R35.1bn for 2021 with R6.9bn more following the minister’s announcement last week.
Muller said: "Given that many if not all service delivery areas are underfunded, I do not believe one can justify implementing free higher education in South Africa. There was certainly a case for increasing funding back in 2015 because funding support had not kept up with inflation and too many students in need were still excluded from funding or underfunded.
"But the extent of the increase promised by (former) president Zuma in December 2017 was excessive: it already seemed unaffordable in the context of the many other pressing demands on government, and the state of public finances has become much worse since then. If government does not scale back this promise it will have negative implications for other areas – as it already has.“
Muller also noted that the majority of beneficiaries of higher education, including the current “free higher education” policy, were not poor youth.
Muller said most poor people did not have access to higher education because of their schooling, and those outside the higher education system received little or no support from the government.
“Where poor students do receive greater support than in the past, the hope is certainly that more such students will succeed in their studies, be better able to get employment and thereby reduce intergenerational poverty over time. However, this is only likely to be an accurate description of a small proportion of cases," Muller added.
Muller also echoed calls for a new approach to tertiary funding as the current one was unsustainable.
At the time Zuma announced the introduction of free education, he was warned by the Heher Commission he set up that the state did not have the capacity to provide free tertiary education to all students.
Political analyst from the Xubera Institute of Research & Development, Xolani Dube, contended that it was not possible to have free education in a capitalist society like South Africa.
"The issue of education cannot be divorced from the policies that govern the country, including the economic policy. There's a mismatch between the needs of business and what is being offered at universities. Coupled with this, the government does not even know where the students it funds disappear into after graduation so they cannot track the return on investment," said Dube.
He said the government would have to come up with a different funding model which would be a combination of loan and bursary as the current 100% free one was not sustainable and turned education into another form of social welfare.
Muller added: "It’s politically easier in the short-term to allow large numbers of students into the system, even if there is not enough money to support them and institutions do not provide good enough quality education. But the negative consequences will ultimately be felt, either through underfunded students, poor quality education and graduates, sacrificing other service delivery areas or disillusioned graduates who cannot get quality employment."
Zintle Gcadinja is one of the around 23 000 students who had outstanding debt at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology as of December 31.
She abandoned her self-funded studies in Geomatics during the second year as she could not pay the fees.
"I was blocked from registering in 2020 as I owed R86 344. There's no way my mother can afford to pay that amount. I will have to work to help pay it off. At the same time I have to concentrate on my studies. I am appealing for financial sponsors to help me,” Gcadinja said, adding that the situation had taken an emotional toll on her.
At UCT, a 25 year-old final-year Chemical Engineering student who did not want to be identified said he owed the university R40 000.
"There was no way I could have been allowed to register this year without first settling the amount. So I sat at home in Zimbabwe until I heard that as a result of the student protests we could register. I arrived in Cape Town this morning (Friday) at 4am and am now done with registration. I have also managed to find a place in res. But I will have to find a part-time job to pay the debt off", the student said.
Muller said there were four broad dimensions to the student funding problem, namely enrolment, resources available from the state, resources available from students who could pay, and possible alternative funding sources such as public or private loans.
"A better balance needs to be found between these four factors that still prioritises equity," Muller said.
UCT said it would announce plans for a fundraising campaign in the coming weeks while Stellenbosch University said it had sourced funding for bursaries for students who were unable to register due to outstanding fees.
NSFAS said it would finalise the number of students who would be funded once admission and registration data was received from institutions.
NSFAS spokesperson Sibongile Mncwabe said the disbursement for the year would be made during the first week of April.
In a statement, Usaf said the budgetary constraints facing universities "nibble away" at the effectiveness of the higher education system, undermining its status as the continent’s strongest one.
"In a democracy such as ours, the fact that the higher education system is unaffordable to the vast majority of households is antithetical to the purpose and role of our universities as drivers of producing an equal society and contributing to the emergence of a more inclusive, competitive economy," the organisation said.