Despite achieving a Bachelor’s pass, around 10,000 matric learners are still left without spaces at universities.
Public universities can only offer about 235,000 first-year places for the academic year, a number that is substantially less than the number of qualifying candidates.
During a social services cluster media briefing on Thursday, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Tebogo Letsie, said “We have 235,000 spaces for first-time entering students at our public universities, whereas basic education produced 245,000 students with bachelor’s passes. So, the difference there is 10,000 students.”
Letsie added that the higher education sector has also increased spaces for first year students this year by 33,000 because last year they had 202,000 spaces.
Mr Tebogo Letsie, Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training, called on institutions of higher learning to promptly provide @myNSFAS with student registration data. This will enable upfront payments to institutions, safeguarding both students and… pic.twitter.com/tZ0iag7qFb
— Parliament of RSA (@ParliamentofRSA) January 15, 2026
Taking into account some of the students already in university repeating modules for the first year, the number gets drastically higher.
Prospective students are, however, still urged to watch for emails from universities, as there are timelines to follow when accepting or declining admission offers. This way, there is still time for a few spaces to be available, but for a selected number of students.
Prospective students are also advised to look into TVET and CET colleges. There are registered private higher education institutions and colleges, and their programmes are accredited.
The government is in the process of expanding access to education and training in some universities, including the North West University Mining School in Rustenburg, Tshwane University of Technology Satellite Campus in Giyani, University of Zululand Satellite campus in Ulundi and the new TVET college campuses across the country.
Universities such as the University of Mpumalanga and Sol Plaatje University are also expanding their enrollments annually and introducing new postgraduate programmes. This will help tremendously in distributing the student numbers.
Also see: NSFAS Funding 2026: Essential information and what you need to know
Feature Image: Gettys
