Budget 2016 does not solve university funding crisis
28 February 2016
We welcome the R16.3bn emergency funding provided for Higher Education in the 2016 Budget. However so deep is the funding shortfall in this sector that even this significant amount fails to address key chronic problems in the university system, as it brought nothing new to the table for long term needs.
The DA condems unlawful and distructive protest. Sadly, we are obliged to point out that until the deeper systemic issues are comprehensively dealt with, violent protest will continue to disrupt Universities throughout South Africa, and possibly even escalate.
The DA was hopeful that the Minister of Finance would announce bold new solutions to the funding crisis in the Higher Education sector. But the budget provides no long term solutions to the vexed question of the ‘missing middle’; to the intractable matter of future fee increases; or to the chronic shortages of accommodation on campuses everywhere.
The generous top-ups to NSFAS, while hugely important to the lives of thousands of poor students, will not expand the scheme’s reach into the ‘missing middle’. These are students from lower-income families that earn above the R122 000 per annum threshold used in the NSFAS means test who still cannot afford to finance their university studies themselves and are not seriously considered by banks for commercial loans.