For the academic year 2024, more than 1.2 million applications have been granted by the National Student Financial Aid Service (NSFAS). During a press event on Monday, March 4, NSFAS Board Acting Chairperson Professor Lourens Van Staden verified the figure.
Updates on NSFAS Applications For 2024 Academic Year
Van Staden affirmed at the briefing that the NSFAS had closed applications on February 15th. As of February 16th, 1,936,330 applications had been submitted to the funding scheme.
These figures are current as of March 1st
- A total of 1,936,330 applications were received.
- 1 244 854 have short-term funding.
- 108 345 people registered; evaluations for 59 723 are still pending.
- 94 816 is awaiting the necessary paperwork.
- 84 225 has been withdrawn by the student.
- There are 52 038 ongoing.
- Since applicants just created profiles rather than submitting applications, 136 468 applications are currently in the not begun status.
- According to Van Staden, 243 113 applications have been denied by NSFAS, and 15,174 appeals have been filed.
Loan Applications For 2024
As of February 16, 2024, NSFAS had received 30728 loan applications under the lending plan.
“We’ve pre-evaluated students and identified those who meet the prerequisites for the loan. To find out if the impacted students approved NSFAS to handle their loan application, correspondence was issued to them via the student portal.
The Acting Board Chairperson affirmed, “This is specifically for those students who had applied for a bursary but were above the income threshold but within the loan threshold.” According to the financial plan, student loans will be given to 31 800 missing middle school students in total.
When Will Reimbursements Be Made?
After the 2024 academic year was delayed, mostly because of registration issues, the NSFAS Board said that it made the decision to ask universities to act as a conduit to pay the allowances for February and March while everything are still in order. NSFAS will employ the direct payment channel for TVET Colleges.
Payment will be made by this Friday at the latest to the 29 institutions that have already turned in their registration data. We urge all other establishments to provide registration information so that NSFAS can make a payment to catch up.
According to Van Staden, NSFAS sent all institutions two upfront payments in order to sustain them and the students. On January 31st, the first upfront payment was distributed, and on February 29th, the second one. For universities to use the money to disburse student allowances, NSFAS paid them in advance.
The Following is Covered by the First Upfront Payment
Book Allowance: Based on half of the academic year’s cost in 2023.
Accommodations: Amount allocated to pay for a month’s worth of lodging.
Medical Students: To support certain institutions that have registered medical students whose academic year begins in January, provisions have been established for two months’ worth of allowances.
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