Free varsity - no free ride

24 Nov 2016

Even the poorest university students will have to find a way to pay back the money lent to them for their fees or risk getting nailed by the taxman.

This is one of the key recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training. The commission's interim report, dated 2 November, was released by President Jacob Zuma yesterday moments before he was quizzed on the #FeesMustFall protests during a Q&A session in parliament.

The commission, established in June amid often violent protest action, was charged with investigating the feasibility of free tertiary education and finding new sources of funding for it. Its final report is expected to be completed in June.

Despite acknowledging that "too many deserving candidates" were being excluded for lack of money, the commission said students who received state funding should not expect "a free ride".

"Because higher education and training produces substantial longterm benefits for both the state and a successful student, persons who enjoy fee-free higher education should be treated as loan recipients in respect of which a reasonable obligation to repay in full or in part arises when a certain level of income is earned by the erstwhile student.

"An important influence in favour of the obligation to repay was the perceived need to render the funding process self-sustaining as fully and as quickly as possible," the report said.

The commission slated the National Student Financial Aid Scheme for being ineffective at collecting debts from graduates, and said it needed to hand this responsibility to "someone else".

It said free education should include everything a student needs, such as transport, accommodation, study materials and living expenses, and the state would have to at least double the R60-billion a year it spends on higher education.

Source: The Times

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