By Thapelo Molefe
The Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) has called for a fundamental overhaul of the higher education funding system, warning that clearing student debt without addressing its root causes will leave more young people struggling to access their qualifications.
The call comes after the Banking Sector Education and Training Authority (BANKSETA) settled R13.9 million in outstanding debt owed by 253 graduates from the Central University of Technology (CUT), allowing them to access qualifications they had earned but could not obtain because of unpaid fees.
YCLSA Interim National Secretary Jan Nabane welcomed the intervention, but said it was not a lasting solution to a student debt crisis that stood at about R59 billion across the post-school education system, according to figures presented to Parliament in May 2026.
“We cannot continue to celebrate individual escapes from a system that systematically reproduces financial barriers to education,” Nabane said in a statement on Saturday.
“Why should graduates who have fulfilled their academic requirements depend on exceptional funding arrangements to access qualifications they have already earned?” Nabane asked.
Nabane attributed the crisis to the “commercialisation” of higher education, arguing that access to universities and colleges remained heavily influenced by students’ ability to pay.
“Student debt is one of the clearest manifestations of this contradiction. Rather than guaranteeing education as a social right, the system makes access to learning conditional upon financial capacity,” he said.
He said students from poor and working-class families continued to face financial barriers, including registration fees, tuition, accommodation and food costs, which could prevent them from completing their studies or accessing their qualifications.
The organisation called for an immediate and comprehensive programme to settle historical student debt, particularly for unemployed graduates and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
It also backed proposals from the broader student movement to use university reserves to address outstanding debt, expand financial assistance, halt fee increases and end the withholding of academic results and qualifications because of unpaid fees.
Nabane said universities should explain how their available financial resources could be used to alleviate student debt without compromising their long-term financial sustainability.
The organisation also acknowledged the proposed Student Debt Relief Bill of 2025, which seeks to establish a fund to assist qualifying students with outstanding university debt.
However, Nabane warned against relying primarily on taxpayers to settle debts accumulated under the current system, saying public funding should also prevent new debt from building up.
“Public resources must be used to expand access to education, strengthen public institutions and prevent the continued accumulation of student debt, rather than simply settling liabilities produced by the existing system after the damage has already been done,” he said.
The YCLSA called for a shift away from a market-driven higher education model towards a publicly funded system that treats education as a social right.
It said universities and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges should focus on developing skills needed by the country, including teachers, scientists, healthcare workers, engineers and artisans.
Nabane said the BANKSETA intervention demonstrated the immediate benefits of debt relief but argued that lasting change would require addressing the conditions that leave students indebted in the first place.
“Our objective cannot simply be to clear the debts produced by the existing system, but to change the system that produces the debt,” he said.
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