Students who applied to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) for a missing middle loan can finally breathe a sigh of relief as the NSFAS Administrator has confirmed the timeline for funding decisions. This loan scheme targets students who do not qualify for traditional NSFAS funding but cannot afford to pay their fees.
Freeman Nomvalo, who was appointed as administrator by former Minister Blade Nzimande in April 2024 following the dissolution of the NSFAS board addressed a media briefing on developments relating to administrative reform at NSFAS.
Nomvalo previously disclosed that the scheme received 24,000 NSFAS loan applications for the 2024 academic year. However, many applicants did not meet the NSFAS loan requirements or had incomplete applications.
Funding decisions have now been made and will be communicated to students before the end of August, according to Nomvalo. He also mentioned that NSFAS is working to increase its capacity to implement the loan scheme in the future.
We are also in the final planning phase for the appointment of specialised capacity to finalise the implementation of the loan scheme for 2024 and beyond
NSFAS will offer 31,000 missing middle student loans in 2024.
NSFAS Appeals
In addition to the delays in NSFAS loan funding decisions for 2024, there has also been a backlog of NSFAS appeals that needed to be evaluated. Nomvalo confirmed that around 88,000 NSFAS appeals needed attention at the beginning of the Administration. Currently, around 4,000 appeals still need to be processed.
What must be appreciated about these aspects, the applications, the appeals process, is just the sheer volume of the numbers that have to be processed and put that alongside the systems that are not reliable so there's quite a bit of work that needs attention there
