This article aims to understand how access, equity and redress challenges are addressed at South Africa's public universities based on their current funding frameworks. Relying on a pragmatic research approach combining desk-research literature review and secondary data analysis, government funding and tuition fees were found to be the primary…

Amongst the first of the challenges facing prospective first-year university students is the need to procure funding for their studies. Indeed, demand for funding for students to access higher education far exceeds supply in South Africa. One solution has been the creation of a government loan scheme, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme…

This report forms part of an international project, led by UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), on higher education's role in supporting "flexible learning pathways." Flexible learning pathways (FLPs) in higher education provide routes to the acquisition of knowledge and skills at different life stages, to…

During the apartheid years in South Africa, career guidance amongst disadvantaged learners was largely absent and, for many, career choices were limited and governed by politics. Despite South Africa having celebrated 20 years of democracy, this situation has improved only slightly. Therefore, the aims of the study were to determine the factors…

In partnership with Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, Salzburg Global Seminar hosted an international strategic dialogue of 60 thought leaders, researchers, and practitioners from institutions serving marginalized populations to…

The funding of higher education in South Africa has in the recent past been a subject of animated debate. This debate has ranged from the adequacy of government funding of higher education, the suitability of the funding framework, to protestations against frequent tuition fee increases. At present, the debate is mainly about "free"…

Tuition fees and the use of student loans to complement government's allocations have become unavoidable because of increasing competing new priorities for funding. This article addresses the funding sources of public higher education through tuition and loans. We explore the effects of shifts from first-stream income (government appropriations)…

The funding of public higher education is currently a moot issue in South Africa. Public funding has been declining and opportunities for winning non-government revenue remain limited. The frequent raising of tuition fees, which is one of the main strategies public universities have resorted to mitigate declining state funding is not without…

The growth of private higher education has come as a surprise to most governments, which have tried to catch up in their regulatory and funding policymaking. In China, Malaysia and South Africa they have given legal recognition to previously disallowed private higher education and this has helped to fuel its subsequent growth. Some governments…

There is a world-wide trend to expect individuals to pay more of the cost of their higher education. This is also the case in South Africa since public funding of higher education decreased from 0.86% of GDP in 1986 to only 0.68% in 2005. Higher education institutions were forced to increase tuition fees to compensate for this "loss"…