How to Apply for NSFAS

March 27, 2018
How to Apply for NSFAS

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a statutory body, funded primarily by the South African National Department of Education and Training, which provides study loans to academically able but financially needy students who wish to study at one of South Africa’s public higher education institutions.All students with a household income of R600 000 or less are encouraged to apply for possible funding

What is a NSFAS loan?

A NSFAS loan is an award that a student can receive from NSFAS upon applying and qualifying for such loan. This loan has to be repaid with interest (interest of each year is linked to the national inflation rate). A maximum award size is determined for each year by NSFAS. A portion of this award can be converted into a bursary based on academic performance. The size of this bursary is determined by the number of modules which the student has passed. A 100% pass rate will result in a 40% bursary rebate on this NSFAS loan.

It’s best to be up front about that.  However, there are some things you can do to make it less painful.

How to Apply for NSFAS Online

1. Open an email account.  Make sure you save your user name and password in a safe place.  Your phone is not a safe place.

2. Download the consent form 

3. Print the consent form and fill it out.  Parents must sign.
4. Make a copy of your ID and the ID of parents and the ID of all persons living with you (or death certificate if parent is deceased)
5. Get a recent pay advice letter or salary slip or affidavit if unemployed or copy of SASSA card for each parent
6. Scan all paperwork and save in your email account or on a flash drive
7. You are now ready to apply online.  Go to www.nsfas.org.za   Do not apply via paper application.  NSFAS has a limited budget.  They do get more applications than they can fund.  They process online applications before paper applications.
8. You will need to register.  Make sure you write down the username and password you use so that you can check your status later.
9. Your name can be your username as long as no one else has the same name
10.  Your password must contain UPPER CASE LETTERS, lower case letters, numbers1234567890 and a special character !@#$%^&*()  And it must be at least 8 characters long.  Examples: SiyaG291! deWet98$  fun@Sun9
11. Once you are registered you can just follow the instructions on the NSFAS page.  Sometimes it takes a while for NSFAS to process your registration so you might need to come back another day.  Sometimes the website doesn’t work.
12. You need to be patient.  🙂  Breath in, breath out.  If it doesn’t work one day, try again another day.

If You Have Problems…

Contact NSFAS Share Call: 0860 067372 / info@nsfas.org.za /NSFAS website

Go to your nearest NYDA office for help.  If you are applying for a TVET College, you can also get assistance there.

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