FUNDING CLIFF: Postgraduate funding crisis prompts launch of new bursary toolkit

South Africa’s postgraduate students are falling through a widening funding gap, with the National Research Foundation (NRF) receiving a fraction of what the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) gets for undergraduates, a disparity described as a “national crisis” at the launch of a new sector-wide bursary toolkit on 20 August.

A webinar, hosted by the Independent Philanthropy Association of SA (Ipasa), brought together funders, university leaders and bursary practitioners to launch a toolkit, knowledge brief, roadmap and set of templates aimed at helping philanthropic funders design more effective higher education funding programmes.

Louise Sturrock, Ipasa’s programme manager, said the resources were developed after months of consultation because “many are navigating this landscape without a shared body of knowledge”, despite thousands of capable students being “held back every year, often by financial constraints alone”.

Funding gap

Professor Lynn Morris, Deputy-Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation at the University of the Witwatersrand, told those in attendance that while NSFAS received “over R50-billion” annually for undergraduates, the National Research Foundation’s postgraduate funding budget was “only R1-billion” in 2024, and had roughly halved since 2017.

“There’s a real stark difference between what the government invests in undergraduate versus what they invest in postgraduate,” Morris said.

She added that the shortfall had created a “funding cliff” because students fully funded by NSFAS as undergraduates found almost no equivalent support once they moved into postgraduate study.

“We find that about 80% of the student debt... is in the postgrad space,” she said, since students carried undergraduate debt into their postgraduate enrolment.

Morris also flagged high attrition, saying about 25% of Wits’ PhD students never completed their degrees, and pointed to the Presidential PhD Programme,  announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2023,  as an example of underfunded intent where only five programmes were approved nationally “at a considerably lower, in fact, about a tenfold lower funding level than was originally... aspired to”.

In response, Wits had introduced a Doctoral Academy, an online skills platform called GOLD, a Postgraduate Hub for wraparound support, a Graduate Research Management System to track student progress, and a dedicated funding portal.

Funders respond

Responding panellists Chantelle Oosthuizen, Executive Director of the Cyril Ramaphosa Education Trust (CRET), and Leandi Sadie, Partnership and Stakeholder Specialist at the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, argued that funding alone was not enough.

“A bursary cannot simply be about paying fees,” Oosthuizen said, pointing to trust’s addition of psychosocial support, mentoring and a compulsory driver’s licence programme after the organisation noticed that graduates without licences struggled to find employment.

Sadie said Allan Gray Orbis had extended its 21-year entrepreneurship-focused model into postgraduate study through a one-year accelerator rather than funding tuition directly. Its first postgraduate cohort of 30 students grew from producing 16 to 25 business ideas within a year, with 19 progressing into venture-building support.

“Just after a year, we’ve seen such an amazing result,” she said.

Both funders cautioned against measuring success purely by the number of bursaries awarded.

“Is it about scale or is it about the actual outcome?” Sadie asked, adding that funders should rather ask: “Where, when and how will this funding actually make the greatest difference?”

Responding to Innocent Nkata, CEO of the SA Institute for Distance Education, on whether funders should also invest in institutional capacity, Morris agreed this was often overlooked, pointing to monitoring systems and academic support structures as ways to cut attrition and, ultimately, funding pressure.

What the toolkit contains

Katlego Thindisa, Managing Director of Edukat and lead developer of the resources, said the toolkit was built around a single guiding question for funders: “Not simply how many students can we fund, but what problem are we solving... and what conditions must be in place for that investment to translate into outcomes.”

The suite covers both undergraduate and postgraduate funding, including a Funding Toolkit on programme design, a Postgraduate and Research Knowledge Brief, a step-by-step roadmap, and templates covering funding agreements, selection criteria, budgeting and monitoring and evaluation. It also outlines funding models beyond the standard full-cost bursary, including top-up funding, co-funding and institution-level funding.

Thindisa credited practitioners Bailey Corder, Dr Riaan Els, Kristin Larsen, Tracy Webster, Halli Manolakos and Linda Whitfield-Fredman, and academics Jonathan Jansen, Loyiso Nongxa and Francois Strydom for shaping the resources. The initiative was funded by the Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation, the Doris Crossley Foundation and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.

Closing the session, Linda Whitfield-Fredman, Executive Trustee at the Harry Crossley Foundation, praised the toolkit but flagged a tension it does not resolve: rising costs and longer completion times mean funders are having to support fewer students even as programmes improve.

“That is a concern,” she said, “because obviously we’d like to reach more students, but best practice is making us pull back.”

The toolkit and accompanying resources were made available as an open-access resource at the end of the session, with organisers urging funders and institutions to share it widely. DM

Siyabonga Goni is an Education Reporter at Daily Maverick. The creation of this role was made possible with the support of the Harry Crossley Foundation.