NSFAS: 5 University Applications for every One College Application
From a recent interview with the administrator of NSFAS, Randall Carolissen, here, we get the following numbers:
- 543 268 first time applicants in total
- 453 157 University applicants
- 90 111 TVET College applicants
For every one College application, there are 5 University applications.
NSFAS applications for Universities are now closed. But applications for TVET Colleges are still open. In an attempt to get more students to apply for College.
South Africans obsessed with getting Matric and getting a Degree
There is good reason to be obsessed with Matric. Here is some data from Analytico, from an article in 2016 on the Business Tech Website. With some calculations I added.
This shows that a person with a Bachelors degree can expect to earn 12.6 times as much as a person who did not complete primary school. Or, maybe a better comparison is to say that a person with a Bachelors degree can expect to earn about four times what a person with Matric can expect to earn.
A person with Grade 12 and a Diploma, can expect to earn 2.7 times as much as a person with only Matric.
This makes a compelling argument to improve your level of education. Even one level of further studies can improve your income potential by over 60% from you current level.
What about unemployment?
The problem with the above calculations is that unemployment amongst the youth is nearly 60%. And "youth" in this context are (out of school) people younger than 35 years of age.
Without matric, unemployment is around 30%. Get your matric, and your chances of unemployment drops to 27,1%... So getting your matric does not really improve your chances of finding a job.
However, unemployment amongst graduates is only 6,6%. So getting a degree is as close as you can get to a guarantee of a job in our current economy.
All of this shows why everyone is chasing that degree!
Are there even 543 268 seats at our Universities?
Nope. We have around 71 500 seats at our universities. So...
- 337 730 Matrics are eligible to study at a University (passed with a bachelors or a diploma)
- 71 500 seats available
- So there is space for about 21% of the Matrics who are eligible to go to university
- Of the 453 157who applied for the first time for NSFAS funding (for University studies), there are seats for just under 16% of these applicants.
So at best your chances to get a seat at university, (assuming you get a Diploma or Bachelors pass) is one in five.
It is time to start looking at the alternatives... Of which there are many.