Universities in Crisis: What We Need to Know

In this model, if rich students study attracting more rich students and Free overseas or in private institutions, encourages rich students to leave Education for All or are not studying at all they’ll still the public education sector thus be contributing to higher education leaving the sector underfunded. The Free Education for All model through their (parent’s) tax unlike In this model ‘Third Stream moves away from the idea of the state’s proposal. ‘Third Stream Funding’ by private donors is left education as a privatised Funding’ by private donors should unregulated which increases the commodity. It conceptualises be put into a common pot and inequality between universities. education as a public good for the redistributed to supplement the Currently the third stream funding benefit of all that must be funded ‘HBI’. via the state that collects our taxes inequalities mean that Wits - in this way all of us pay. receives 45% of its funding from Free Education private sources while the average is The funding for HE therefore shifts for the Poor 30% and the University of Limpopo from a model of fees + state only receives 10%. This also leaves funding + private donors to one The slogan ‘Free Education for the universities susceptible to volatile that is primarily state funding. Poor’ is the most talked about but economic pressures. State funding of HE as a percentage the model has hardly been of GDP would therefore increase to developed. Most people using this Current a level more in line with global slogan actually propose a model standards. No one should pay up- similar to the government’s Government front fees or registration costs. This position which is a debt-funded Position means the poor students don’t model (see next panel). have to go through dehumanizing In September 2016 Minister Blade This model is premised on means means testing. It also means that Nzimande announced the testing in which students have to poor students do not leave HE with government’s position on how to prove their parent’s income. This an extra debt to carry. All students address the funding crisis at requires a standard of who counts will pay back through contributing universities in 2017: as ‘poor’ – a superficial to society. classification that currently even - 0% increase in fees for poor and This model has been critiqued by excludes the working poor such as ‘missing middle’ students some as being Free Education for mineworkers. This is why the (everyone whose household the Rich since the rich also won’t ‘missing middle’ has become an income is less than R600 000). have to pay fees. However, the rich important group in the debates – will pay through taxation. 1) The those that are too poor to afford - An increase of up to 8% for rich can pay more taxes to this end: fees but too rich for NSFAS and students earning more than R600 only 10% of High Net Worth have to go to the banks for loans. 000 determined by each university. Individuals (who earn over In this model the universities would This position is thus not a model for R7million a year) are registered tax still run on a fees model but the free education. It’s a no fee payers. If this is increased to just government pays the university on increase position for 2017 that 50%, an extra R92 Billion is made behalf of poor students as a form maintains the payment model in available. 2) Illicit cash flows to the of bursary (not a loan as it currently which the fees of poor students are value of hundreds of billions of is). Students defined by means paid to the universities through Rands have left SAA since 1994, testing as ‘poor’ would leave the NSFAS. It also maintains a debt which could otherwise have been university system without any debt. model in which poor and missing taxed. 3) A wealth tax of the richest State funding of HE would have to middle students (who are mostly 10% of the population is the most either go directly to the institution also poor in terms of generational efficient and democratic way to get or through an intermediary and wealth) have to repay those loans the rich to pay for education and would have to increase. at a later date. This contributes to these funds are sufficient to also the debt cycle of poverty and pay for other social goods such as Rich students are envisioned to ignores the huge debts that poor healthcare. 4) The Auditor-General voluntarily contribute to HE by families already deal with including also found (2014 and 2015) paying increased fees, despite that Black Tax, house repayments etc., wastage amounted to over R60 most universities have only a small while rich students will walk out of billion. So the R40-R50 billion population of rich students. This university without any debts to pay needed for ‘free’ education exists. encourages universities to focus on off. This model also perpetuates the time graduates in their families and  Should HE be imagined as idea that education is a commodity thus have extensive other demands a public or individual to be bought and sold, and valued on their incomes alongside their good? for its capacity to improve NSFAS and/or bank loan repayments. In addition there are a significant  individuals rather than as a public What is your ideal amount of rich people without university system? What good aimed at benefitting South degrees or major income who would would a public, African society broadly. be left off the hook. Therefore the decolonized African tax models on the super-rich (by This model’s reliance on NSFAS University look like? income and wealth) are more entrenches the debt cycle, is not redistributive.  What could replace sustainable (low repayment rates), commissions as the way allows for increased corruption, It is vital that we also struggle for forward? and directs state resources via a free and quality Early Childhood financial intermediary rather than Development and Schooling which  How does a free we don’t have at present. directly thus increasing costs. decolonized HE sector Not only tuition fees but the full cost benefit all aspects of The government’s model also of study is necessary for success at society? leaves ‘Third Stream Funding’ university, including: registration; Resources intact thus perpetuating meals and accommodation; books, inequalities (see middle panel). In equipment and travel.  Pathways to Free Education - the logic of this model, more and Beneficiaries of HE, all students, https://drive.google.com/file more people will end up being should be expected to contribute to /d/0B6dVO9Lj0oLkTkVtT3lxV excluded from HE due to financial society when leaving university HYwRlE/view reasons. through community service and by  The Conversation - working in public institutions after https://theconversation.com/ graduation. Equal participation in free-education-is-possible-if- the benefits of public funding by south-africa-moves-beyond- Other Issues virtue of citizenship would support smoke-and-mirrors-65805 the creation of socially cohesive Autonomy – Some have argued that attitudes amongst students rather if the state pays for HE, then  Submission to the universities should become state than differentiating between ‘rich’ commission for Free institutions. As called for in the and ‘poor’ students. Education - ANC’s slogan “AutonomyMustFall”. https://www.uj.ac.za/facultie Universities should work in the s/facultyofeducation/cert/Do collective public interest not the cuments/CERT%20FEES state. Universities cannot do without Questions to Debate %20COMMISSION autonomy from state power but %20SUBMISSION %20Hlatshwayo_Maharajh_ neither can they do this without  What effect does debt Marawu_Motala_Naidoo_Va state funding. Hence we want have on your life and on lly.pdf autonomous institutions that are the lives of those in your state funded and accountable to community?  Why Neoclassical Arguments communities. against Free Education are  What are your experiences Bullshit Private universities – It has been of means-testing? suggested that the crises in higher https://drive.google.com/file education will lead to a proliferation  Should the rich contribute /d/0B8t2tgFHF8teOFFXQVFH of private higher education to HE voluntarily or should blI0MGM/view universities. The government has they be required to  Forslund, Dick and Rudin, recently put in place measures to contribute to the Jeff. 2015. ‘Paying for allow this to occur. This is absolutely collective interest? not to the benefit of the collective University Education’. Amandla Issue 43/44 public interest. The rich should not  What is access? Getting December p14-15 be allowed to opt out of public your foot into the door institutions. Privatisation will and/or what happens increase inequality. afterwards when you are Higher Education inside of the institution? Graduate Tax - A graduate tax will Funding Models increase the burden on new graduates, many of whom are first The new student movement in 1. The number of students at universities, and universities have South Africa has had a few major universities has doubled since the had to recover their costs by thrusts: decolonization including of end of apartheid (the proportion of increasing student fees, which have the curriculum, ending racism, black students has increased from increased every year beyond patriarchy, anti-privatisation which 52% to 81% since the end of inflation. It has also led to a has criticized the exponential Apartheid). This is a very positive reduction in student support increase in student fees and the development for our democracy, programs and mass lectures thus corporatisation of our universities. but at the same time 200,000 increasing the push-out rate such This pamphlet is concerned with qualifying matriculants are still that over 50% of students don’t get funding, although it is understood excluded from Higher Education their first degree but are saddled that financial access to education (HE) for financial reasons. with debt. The funding crisis is cannot be separated from the turning our universities from quasi- 2. Government has not funded this critique of the corporatized and public institutions to private increase in student numbers colonial nature of the university. institutions, which exacerbates the properly, so the amount of money financial exclusion of the poor The funding crisis at universities given by government per student comes from two developments in has dropped every year. This has higher education: created a funding crisis at