Funding sources for public higher education in South Africa: institutional responses
Loading...
Date
2013
Authors
Ntshoe, Isaac
De Villiers, Pierre
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
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) towards second- (tuition fees) and third-stream (philanthropic
funding and academic entrepreneurialism), and how tuition fees and student loans
might impact on access, equity and throughput rates in South Africa. The qualitative
study using semi-structured interviews was adopted to obtain data with expert
information selected by purposeful sampling from four types of higher education
institutions in South Africa. The data were also obtained from national policy and
institutional documents. We make a case for the indivisibility between first-, secondand
third-stream money incomes and between public-private benefits of tuition fees
and student loans. We argue that the ability of institutions to raise third-stream
income depends on their history, geopolitical location, programmes offered and their
proximity to industry, so as to engage research activities that promote third-stream
income. We further argue that institutions in mainly rural provinces, and students
from poor family backgrounds, most of whom are Black, generally lack the necessary
cultural and social capital to make use of opportunities in the form of bursaries and
student loans.
Description
Keywords
Funding sources, Institutional response, Higher education, Tuition fees, Student loans, Global competition
Citation
Ntshoe, I., & De Villiers, P. (2013). Funding sources for public higher education in South Africa: institutional responses. Perspectives in Education, 31(4), 71-84.