NSFAS Current News Today 19th November 2022
In todays latest NSFAS News – For low-income and middle-income students attending public universities, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) Bursary Scheme was established to provide need-based financial aid at no cost.
Previously known as a student loan, Nsfas is now known as a bursary for college students.
Since then, Nsfas has confirmed that they are pressing on with their pledge to collect on debts accrued before 2018.
During an information session for the government bursary applications of 2023, Prenika Nundlal, Head of Recoveries at Nsfas, shared the following about Nsfas’ mandate:
We’re spreading the word about the current status of debtors’ ability to repay student loans after 2018.
Since the students and the Scheme entered into an arrangement before the fee-free education announcement, the Nsfas maintains that the existing loan agreements are genuine loan agreements.
Thus, after the debtor has signed the agreement, all of the terms and conditions of the agreement are in effect, and the debtor is obligated to repay the money that is owing.
Nundlal has further detailed how Nsfas will collect past due payments from borrowers using both an internal staff and external collections techniques.
It is official that external debt collectors will investigate overdue accounts; next, SARS will do data matching and provide the resulting lists to the debt collection agencies. If a debtor claims they are now working, Nsfas checks with the country’s tax collection agency to verify the claim.
Aside from that, once these people secure employment, they will need to get in touch with Nsfas to set up repayment of their student loans.
Nundlal provided the following options for making payments: debit order, direct deposits, salary deduction, and employer deduction.
Debtors can get in touch with Nsfas through their collections mailbox at [email protected] if they need to negotiate payment arrangements or find out how much their debt currently is.
