The 2023 academic year is underway with many learners around the country attending lectures to achieve their academic goals.
The 2023 academic year is underway with many learners around the country attending lectures to achieve their academic goals.
Lack of funding for tertiary education can be a major barrier for many students to achieve these academic goals.
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) provides bursaries to hundreds of thousands of students from poor and working-class backgrounds.
However, NSFAS will not provide bursaries to students forever. There is a limited amount of time that students will receive the NSFAS bursaries. This is where the N+Rule comes in.
What Is The NSFAS N+Rule
The N+2 rule means that students only have N+2 years to finish a degree.
“N” refers to the minimum number of years allocated to achieve the qualification.
Therefore If a degree can be completed in 4 years, NSFAS will fund you for the 4 years that you can complete the degree. They will also fund you for an additional 2 years if you need to redo certain subjects or modules.
Many students who applied for funding were rejected from being funded by NSFAS because they exceeded the N+2 rule.
NSFAS added, “it is important to further note that, the N+2 rule is not based on the number of years that a student has been funded, but on the number of years that student has been registered for tertiary study at any public university in South Africa, regardless of institution change”.
This means that if a student transfers from one university to another, regardless of whether they were funded by NSFAS at the first one, the number of years registered for the qualification will be counted as part of the N.
