It has been four years since the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) transitioned from being a student loan to a bursary.
The government bursary scheme has since announced that it is still continuing with the recovery of debt that was incurred pre-2018. These students are required to pay back the loan once they complete their qualification and are employed, in terms of the Nsfas Act and the Loan Agreements signed during their studies.
Should the old Nsfas graduates become unemployed, they ought to email Nsfas a valid reason why they have the intention of stopping the debit order.
During the government bursary’s 2023 applications information session, the Head of Recoveries at Nsfas, Prenika Nundlal has explained:
If you were previously funded by Nsfas and need to settle your account, you are required to send an email, providing a valid reason why you intend to stop the debit order.
The Recoveries team will, in turn, review the email submission before the debit order is stopped or removed from the Nsfas system.
Nundlal said Nsfas will continue to recover funds-owed through an internal team and external collections processes on outstanding loans agreements from debtors.
The external debt collectors will check outstanding accounts with no payments, this will be followed by the South African Revenue Service doing data matches and handing over those details to the debt collecting teams. To verify whether a debtor is employed or not, Nsfas relies on the nation's tax collecting authority.
Should a debtor also want to enquire about how much their debt stands at, they can contact Nsfas via their collections mailbox, which can be reached at collections [at] nsfas.org.za (collections[at]nsfas[dot]org[dot]za).
Additionally, old graduates may also contact Scheme once they are employed to make their Nsfas loan payments arrangement with the Recoveries team. According to Nundlal, Nsfas loan payment arrangements can be made in the following ways: debit order, direct deposits, salary deduction, employer deduction.
