The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is in the process of robust upgrades to its accommodation portal, it has revealed.
This, as student accommodation has become a contentious issue over the years, with some students often left stranded at various points during the academic year.
The accommodation hurdle has formed part of the instability and “deep” administrative challenges the scheme has faced over the course of its history.
On Tuesday, NSFAS provided insight into preparations for the 2026 academic year, including the disbursement of funds and student accommodation arrangements.
NSFAS board acting chairperson Dr Mugwena Maluleke revealed that the scheme is in the process of implementing a transitional framework designed to facilitate the shift towards a more centralised, transparent, and student-focused accommodation system.
As a result, all higher education institutions and private accommodation providers are required to adopt the new framework to ensure a seamless process for the allocation and management of accommodation for both new entrants and returning students, he stated.
“As part of this transition, all accommodation dates – including opening, closing, move-in, and move-out periods – will be intrinsically aligned with the academic calendar to prevent students from being stranded at any point during the academic year.
“We are upgrading the accommodation portal to enable students to apply for accommodation, track their application status, accept offers, and log maintenance issues, all within a single platform. Furthermore, the portal will be integrated with institutional student management systems to facilitate automatic verification of student registration and NSFAS eligibility.
“In addition, NSFAS will introduce a robust data-driven reporting and reconciliation process, ensuring clear and timely reconciliation between NSFAS and accommodation providers. This will guarantee prompt payment to providers, thereby encouraging their continued participation in the scheme. The upgraded system will generate monthly occupancy and payment reports directly from the central platform.”
Maluleke also pointed out that NSFAS will also explore the implementation of an in-house accommodation payment functionality, transferring the payment process from portal providers directly to NSFAS. “This enhancement will strengthen financial management and improve the reconciliation of funds disbursed to accommodation providers and students, eliminating the need for third-party payment processing and ensuring greater efficiency and accountability.”
Waseem Carrim, NSFAS acting CEO, added: “One of the key performance indicators we’ve set out is that within four to eight hours of a student arriving on campus, if they qualify for accommodation, they should be placed in accommodation.
“This will ensure that we don’t see instances of students sleeping in libraries, students being homeless as a result of NSFAS’s operational failures.”
An entity of the Department of Higher Education and Training, NSFAS runs a close to R50 billion annual budget, providing financial aid to eligible students at TVET colleges and all 26 public universities.
Over the course of its history, NSFAS is said to have supported over five million beneficiaries.
For the upcoming academic year, Maluleke said a record 893 847 applications have been received. Of these, 593 981 applications (66.45%) were submitted by female applicants, while male applicants accounted for 299 866 applications (33.55%).
“Among these, 520 545 applications are from SASSA beneficiaries, and 2 551 applications are submitted by students with disabilities.
“To date, 609 653 applications have been approved, with 218 043 applications currently incomplete due to outstanding documents. A further 16 862 applications have been cancelled, and 49 538 have been rejected after rigorous review.
“First-time entry students accounted for 766 232 applications, while 125 157 applications came from senior students.”
Missing middle
Meanwhile, the financial aid scheme revealed that it received only 12 000 applications for its loan scheme for “missing middle” students.
The loan scheme was introduced by former higher education, science and innovation minister professor Blade Nzimande in 2024, confirming that “missing middle” students would be funded through a Comprehensive Student Funding Model.
The missing middle is the category of students who come from families with a total income of more than R350 000, but not more than R600 000 per annum.
The Comprehensive Student Funding Model aims to introduce measures to support students currently not assisted by the NSFAS bursary and funding policy. It also seeks to ensure the missing middle students access financial support from government in the form of a loan, to pursue their studies.
Carrim said that from their perspective, the uptake of the loan scheme has been relatively low. “Considering the statistics, it’s 12 000 loan applications versus nearly 900 000 bursary applications. The uptake does seem to be low, I think there is work to be done to market the missing middle loan fund.”
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