Inflation as a reason for fee hike will exclude many university students

While South Africans continue to grapple with the heightened inflation, political economy analyst Daniel Silke said the increment of fees was justified, but for student organisations and activists the hike was a mass exclusionary tool for the “missing middle”.

Silke said the government was left with no choice but to pass on the inflation increases to consumers.

“Every aspect of expenditure is under pressure as a result of inflation. So, there’s very little room left in the government’s coffers to subsidise students,” he said.

“The squeeze is on the consumer, and on families in particular, and now more than ever they need to dig deep because for many their own incomes are not keeping up pace with inflation.”

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Silke said SA should expect the heightened inflation to affect every service and product for the next 12 months before it hopefully begins to abet.

In the short term, however, there isn’t any alternative but to pass the inflation linked increases for services rendered.

SA Union of Students spokesperson Asive Dlanjwa said the inflation argument was baseless, especially for universities, and the hike had one result – exclusion of many students.

“We do not accept it for many reasons. We do not believe this is the time to be increasing the costs of education… Many parents have been laid off while some received salary cuts; there’s been mass retrenchments due to the pandemic but also the cost of living has increased incredibly, even before Covid,” he said.

Dlanjwa said the cohort of students referred to as the missing middle – who were too poor to afford fees, but also not poor enough to qualify for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) – were doomed.

Student activist Albert Baloyi said the increase in university and college tuition fees and student accommodation would affect students who were mainly self-funded, but also reduces the number of students Nsfas can fund.

SA Students Congress deputy president Buyile Matiwane said hiking fees while the economy was on a downward slope showed the government was not reactive to society and their issues.