Dreams Dashed Maladministration in the Financial Aid offices compromises the academic future of many students by Nonkululeko Gwanga, Nwabisa Mlandu and Nolitha Ngamalana
28 March 2017 Volume 76| Edition 1
T
he National Student Financial Aid Scheme’s (NSFAS) maladministration resulted in students’ funding o�ers being retracted on Tuesday, 28 February 2017, despite being told that they were secured the day before. The maladministration in NSFAS o�ces a�ected new applicants for financial aid, as well as those already signed with NSFAS. NSFAS o�ces struggled to process and review the 2017
applications in time. This led to the wrong information being sent out by the UCT Financial Aid O�ce informing the wrong students that they were being o�ered funding. Moments later, retraction emails were sent out – blaming the incident on technical di�culties. While this was merely a technical error for the UCT Financial Aid o�ces, the e�ect on the students’ lives is the di�erence between accessing tertiary education and being stuck on
the outside looking in. For Goitsemedime, a third year student, it was devastating. Earlier that day, a single mother rejoiced at the news that her daughter had finally managed to secure funding and lessen the financial strain on her shoulders. However, that joy was shortlived as the next morning an email revoking funds brought them back to square one. It appeared that NSFAS had not finalised the application status of her appeal. The appeal process had to be restarted, yet again.
Students coming out on top of the seemingly random process of NSFAS loan approval, is only part of the battle of securing reliable financial assistance in university. Issues with unprofessional administration, outdated policy and instability threaten the futures of too many students. One student, who is no longer eligible for funding, approached the Financial Aid o�ces seeking help but was given incorrect information. The Financial Aid administrative o�cer,
Image: Cara Spall Students queing outside of the Financial Aid Office
who attended to the student, informed her that she needed to get a fee waiver for her to proceed with registration. In actual fact, the student needed to apply for financial appeal. Aside from the additional stress, receiving incorrect information meant that the student had little time to gather the necessary documents and money to get to campus. (continued on
page 2).