Top NSFAS Bursary Alternatives to Fund your Education in South Africa 2025/2026

Lets’s face it, not all of us are going to get approved into the NSFAS bursary scheme. I have seen many students get disappointed.

Besides, many students out there are not interested in financing their education with a loan.

The hustle of paying back is another headache.

So what are the alternative ways to fund your education in South Africa?

  • Bursary schemes
  • Scholarships
  • Crowdfunding

We’ll explore these below, but first, let’s find out what exactly they stand for.

A bursary is a grant, especially one awarded to someone to enable them to study at university or college.

scholarship is a grant or payment made to support a student’s education, awarded based on academic or other achievements.

Crowdfunding, in this case, is the practice of funding your education by raising money from a large number of people who each contribute a relatively small amount, typically via the Internet.

In January 2019, TimesLive reported a 78.2% matric pass rate for the Class of 2018 and 156,885 distinctions across the country. This means more and more young South Africans will be enrolled in tertiary institutions.

Thus, students are now taking to crowdfunding to finance the next step of their academic journey.

In this post, we’ll look into how to fund your education via these methods and other bursaries like Nsfas.

If you still want to apply for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, here’s a post on how to create nsfas account and apply.

Let’s dive in!!!


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