Repaying NSFAS loans creates burden

[daveza]

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-afr...oans-creates-burden---equal-education-8204933

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) should be turned into a grant if it was to work with education in alleviating poverty across the country, Equal Education general secretary Tshepo Motsepe said on Wednesday.

“As a loan, it creates a burden,” Motsepe told the commission on the feasibility of fee-free higher education sitting at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria.

Motsepe said it was not fair for black students to have to worry about making payments for their education when they enter the job market and have to deal with other historic debts.

“Though the interest levied is low, it shackles new graduates with too heavy a debt,” he said, adding that students who graduated from historically black universities already had serious burdens compared to those from historically white universities.

He said students from historically white universities had better chances of finding employment than those from black universities.

“Black students already have a burden of having to find a job, and face the pressure of having to pull their families out of poverty. And the added pressure of a loan repayment is far too much for young people to bear,” Motsepe said.

Wow. :wtf:

 

[supersunbird]

So only those blacks qualifying from an historically black university should not have to repay and those blacks that qualify at an historically white university should pay?

 

[Venomous]

LOL,

There are no white only universaties.

There are only universaties catering for all.
If anything white students are being turned away in favour of black students.

 

[Beachless]

I don't even know why everyone bothers with this free education thing. It's free degrees for everyone that should be on the cards.

 

[Johnatan56]

Yet:

NSFAS has made repayments affordable for you. Repayments of your student loan are based on the salary that you earn, and start once your salary is R30 000 or more per year. The repayment amount starts at a calculation of 3% of your annual salary, increasing to a maximum of 8% when your salary reaches R59 300 or more per year. For example, this means you will repay R900 on a salary of R30 000 a year, or R75 per month. Once your annual salary reaches R59 300 your repayment will be R4 744 a year or R395 a month. You can select to pay more than this, so that you can pay your loan off faster, and reduce the amount of interest you will be charged on your loan.

Interest is charged at 80% of the repo rate, which is the repurchase rate at which the Reserve Bank lends to commercial banks. NSFAS will continue to charge interest on all outstanding balances, making it imperative that you start repaying your loan as soon as possible. The interest rate is set on the 1 April every year for the full year and does not change over the next 12 months.

How many students are in the higher education system, and how many are receiving NSFAS funding?

In the 2013 academic year (the number of students enrolled at universities for 2014 is not available), the number of students at university was 938 698 and of this, 194 923 were funded – approximately 20%. In the 2014 academic year for the TVETs, the number of students enrolled in the Report 191 and NCV programmes amounted to 645 444, of which 228 642 were funded, approximately 35%.

And then there is this lovely thing:

When and how is a loan converted into a bursary?

Different loans have different rules about conversion. Up to a maximum of 40% of a general loan is converted into a bursary when a student passes all of the courses they were registered for in that year. Students who apply at their institution's Financial Aid Office to be on the NSFAS Final-Year Programme have their final-year loans converted into a 100% bursary if they pass all of their final-year courses and qualify to graduate. If they do not pass all subjects, the conversion applicable to general loans is applied.

You only pay an interest rate of 0.8x the repo rate, with a possibility of 0.6x the course fees in the first two years with the final year having the possibility of being free.

All from: http://www.nsfas.org.za/content/studentsupport.html

 

[^^vampire^^]

Yet:





And then there is this lovely thing:


You only pay an interest rate of 0.8x the repo rate, with a possibility of 0.6x the course fees in the first two years with the final year having the possibility of being free.

All from: http://www.nsfas.org.za/content/studentsupport.html

These clowns are too ****ing stupid to pass. When I was in first year there were students that had been there for 5 years asking to join our group for first year programming because they hadn't managed to pass it 5 years in a row. Think about that, first year INTRO to programming, 5 YEARS, STILL FAILING.

 

[konfab]

I don't even know why everyone bothers with this free education thing. It's free degrees for everyone that should be on the cards.

It doesn't really matter. The only degree you need in this country is to be a few shades darker than the competition.

 

[Vrotappel]

Loans tend to create burdens.

 

[konfab]

Loans tend to create burdens.

A loan that goes towards a meaningful degree is an investment.

 

[Jase]

Can I switch my bond to NSFAS and pay those rates please. It has become too much of a burden for me to handle .... :erm:

 

[Foxhound5366]

I've been (slowly) paying off a NSFAS loan for my whole adult working life. Yes it's a 'burden', but not having gotten that qualification that enabled me to get my string of jobs would have been a far greater burden. Thanks to that super-low interest rate, you really hardly notice it compared to your other expenses, and the fact that you only have to start repaying once you get a job that pays you 'enough' is a big help for students looking for work.