The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has announced that it will start processing payments to institutions and students from Friday, 8 April 2022.
In a statement on Tuesday (5 April), NSFAS confirmed that it has received the first tranche of its budgetary allocation for the first quarter of the financial year from the National Treasury.
NSFAS payment dates to start soon after 8 April 2022
“The Scheme will thus be able to start processing payments to institutions and paying student allowances from Friday, April 08, 2022,” NSFAS confirmed.
“An official communication has been sent to all institutions on the allowance payment process. The institutions that have complied with the 2022 approved NSFAS Eligibility Criteria and Conditions for Financial Aid will receive payment from NSFAS.
“The Communique from NSFAS further requests institutions to abide by the funding rules set out in the NSFAS Eligibility Criteria and Conditions for Financial Aid, when disbursing funding to students.”
You can view the eligibility criteria and other details in this article. In February, the Scheme announced that it had released the funding list of eligible students to institutions of higher learning. Unsuccessful applicants had a right to appeal within 30 days of their outcome.
The Scheme’s announcement on Tuesday opens the way for institutions to start disbursing allowances to students soon after Friday. Some institutions have already published payment dates on their websites.
UKZN
For students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), first semester allowances for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 were due to have been paid on 28 February, 7 March and 4 April 2022 respectively, according to the university’s published schedule.
Dates for Cycle 4 and 5 were indicated as 3 May and 6 June respectively. The university has not yet updated its schedule in light of NSFAS’ latest announcement.
Second semester dates were indicated as follows: Cycle 6 – 18 July; Cycle 7 – 1 August; Cycle 8 – 5 September; Cycle 9 – 3 October; and Cycle 10 (final payment of the year) – 7 November.
UNISA
In March, the University of South Africa (UNISA) posted an announcement on its website regarding NSFAS allowance pay dates.
“The 2022 NSFAS allowances disbursements will commence in April 2022 once NSFAS payments have been received at the beginning of April 2022. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and we will do our best to release the allowances as soon funds are received from NSFAS,” the university said.