Students across South Africa depend on the government’s National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) but even so the fund can still only help one in every two student. Student debt increases yearly, and it is harder to recover fee payments from students, including from wealthy students. This leaves universities with overdrafts as they are experiencing a funding shortage. Universities find themsel
ves not able to accommodate all qualifying students solely because the grant they received is insufficient. However, one of the key reasons why poor, but academically deserving students are unable to access higher education is that funding falls far short of the demand. Government subsidies do not take the economic status of students into consideration. As a consequence, universities accumulate large student debt, which unfortunately has to be written off annually and a large number of student being financially excluded yearly
This campaign looks to rescue, among others, five students from the University of Cape Town that have went through severe hardships, trauma, depression, mental illness and have disabilities; whose fees are totalling R300 000 in outstanding debts that cannot be paid. These are academically qualifying students who are currently unregistered at UCT due to this debt that have been turned away.This fund will contribute into settling off outstanding debts of this academically deserving student coming across from all spectrums, region and race with a more focus on the previously disadvantaged students and those that cannot afford to settle their debts due to family income against high fees. This campaign is an initiative by UCT students from different backgrounds concerned about their fellow students. It’s a major contribution towards breaking the cycle of financial exclusion and poverty experienced by UCT students. UCT students who are not able to continue with their degrees simply because of debt. University qualifications stand to give a lifetime opportunity and also the ability to empower the poorest from our disadvantaged communities. If you help these students with their student tuition debt, you’ll be supporting the education they are missing. These students pledge and commit to do community services in exchange for help with their student debts. Some have been engaged in community work partaking in fire disaster relief programs, or tutoring previously disadvantaged school children in our surrounding impoverished community. A token of any amount towards helping these students debt will move a long way to procuring and building their future, and of the lives of the communities which they come from and heartily serve. We believe that together we can make a difference through your generous donation.
