The prospect of starting one’s tertiary education can be very exciting, but to get there, students would need to acquire the necessary funding to ensure the fulfilment of their educational pursuits.
In South Africa, it has been statistically proven that about a third of the population is living in extreme poverty. As such, the possibility for millions of students to get the opportunity to fulfill their tertiary studies unfunded proves difficult.
This represents part of the appeal of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), as it aims to financially support those students who need it most.
It is not unknown that the NSFAS bursary is one of the most sought-after bursary options in the country. This has largely to do with the fact that the bursary:
- Covers a variety of courses, so long as they are being studied at a registered public institution in the country.
- The eligibility requirements for the bursary are not academically competitive, and rather largely rely on the applicant’s ability to prove financial need.
These are not all the reasons why students pursue NSFAS bursaries, but they attribute to the accessibility of the bursary. Thus, because of its accessibility to prospective tertiary students, each year, NSFAS ends up receiving typically around 1 million applications.
With these numbers only continuing to increase, applicants have to keep track of their application's progress by themselves.
Related: NSFAS Applications 2024
Check Your NSFAS Status
Thankfully for applicants, over recent years it has been made easier to check your Nsfas status. Outside of logging onto their myNSFAS portal for tracking, students can use a cost-free and method of tracking on their phone.
The phone tracking method works as follows:
- Students must dial the USSD code *120*67327#
- Students must then follow the prompts to track.
Alternatively, as mentioned above, students can also track their funding by logging into their myNSFAS portal. Otherwise, they can also track via WhatsApp by:
- Adding the number 078 519 8006
- Starting a conversation with the number, and going from there
