NSFAS says it is committed to ensuring that 2026 is an efficient and effective year. This is after acting CEO Waseem Carrim says they are willing to be held accountable this year, as more than 600,000 applicants have been approved for bursaries, while all students will receive their full book and meal allowance on 1 February 2025. Aiming to turn the tide, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is promising to ensure that students are placed at the centre of things and receive their allowances on time in 2026.
It notes that landlords will receive their payments directly, with universities expected to play their part by submitting accurate student registration data early so payments can be processed. This was revealed on Tuesday, 6 January 2026, at the GCIS offices in Hatfield, Pretoria, during NSFAS’ first briefing of 2026, which addressed preparations for the academic year ahead. NSFAS’ new acting board chairperson, Dr Mugwena Maluleke, outlined key issues and revealed that they had recorded 893,847 applications, with most applicants being female (500,000).
“To date, 609,653 applications have been approved, with 203,731 applications currently in progress; 16,862 applications have been cancelled and 49,568 have been rejected after rigorous review… On 1 February 2026, NSFAS will issue an upfront payment covering the full book allowance [and] one month of meal, accommodation, personal care and travel allowances,” said Maluleke. Responding to a media question, NSFAS acting CEO Waseem Carrim said that the rejections were due to the household income of applicants exceeding R350,000.
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The NSFAS criteria explained that students from households that earned above the R350,000 threshold annually were not eligible for bursaries, but rather loans. “We do offer those students an opportunity to be transferred to a loan application… I come across instances where people exceed the household income category, but they’ll say to me that they have three children at university at the same time, and it’s just unaffordable for them.
I think the way we look at funding for higher education becomes important in terms of the mix of funding options that are available here,” said Carrim. Only 12,000 loan applications had been received by NSFAS, and they had yet to be approved for funding. To ensure a speedy process for payments and approval of bursaries for continuing students, NSFAS asked all universities to submit their 2025 academic results no later than 1 December 2025.
According to Maluleke, the majority of universities had met this deadline, and funding decisions were able to be made before 31 December 2025. NSFAS says it will deploy staff to universities to ensure students receive assistance with accommodation. “We intend to deploy full-time capacity to institutions of higher learning, which will work with financial aid offices in the placement of students, and one of the things we set out as a key performance indicator for ourselves 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 or students being homeless as a result of NSFAS’ operational failures,” said Carrim.
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