While South Africa’s Constitution and National Development Plan speak of developing and enabling a skilled capable citizenry, every January, thousands of qualified, motivated, academically deserving young South Africans cannot register for tertiary studies – not because they failed, but because they are poor in exactly the wrong way. They are the “missing middle”. As the percentage of this group of students increases, Mary Maponya, Fundi Executive Head of Lending, argues that addressing this barrier to entry must remain an ecosystem priority – in spite of new budgetary pressures.
With the first tertiary semester now completed, missing middle students who had been hopefully “waiting in the wings” to find the money needed to self-finance their studies, will now need to abandon their tertiary dreams for this year. “A student who cannot access a loan is not just an individual tragedy. They represent a missed opportunity and a lack of follow-through on the education they have already invested in,” notes Maponya. “Every year we continue to allow the missing middle to fall through the cracks, we are actively dismantling the future we claim to be building.”
As defined by NSFAS, the “missing middle” are students from households earning between R350 000 and R600 000 per year: families that sit just above the poverty line on paper but are financially incapable of carrying a full-cost degree.
Critically, according to the Ikusasa Student Financial Aid Programme’s internal review, these income thresholds have not been recalibrated for inflation or the rising cost of tertiary education (ISFAP, 2026).
While Government’s 2024 Comprehensive Student Funding Model was supposed to fund approximately 47% of the then estimated 68 446 students in the formal missing middle category (DHET, 2024), it confirmed what the private sector has long known: at current trajectories, government funding alone cannot close this gap.
Fundi has been working in this space since 1996. Throughout that time, the organisation’s findings have shown that the barrier to tertiary education for the missing middle is almost never academic. It is financial. “These students achieved the necessary marks. They received the acceptance letters. And then, at the very moment when their futures should have opened up, the money ran out.”
Of greater concern is that – in real terms – the missing middle is growing. Universities SA estimates that approximately 40% of young South Africans who want to study further are currently ineligible for NSFAS or similar funding.
While the exact number of students annually denied access specifically due to financial eligibility gaps (as distinct from other access barriers) is not uniformly tracked, Fundi’s internal loan application data provides a partial proxy; with sector-wide figures requiring further DHET disclosure.
“Over the past 30 years, Fundi has enabled more than R10 billion in ‘missing middle’ finance to 1.1 million public servants and their dependents,” notes Maponya. “Data from the past three years indicates that 53% of this funding was used for payment of fees (75% of which went towards tuition and 20% towards tech devices), while our top three public employer sectors, education (41%), health (16%) and SAPS (15%), account for 72% of our customer base. That concentration is itself a signal. Our book reflects the sectors already absorbing qualified graduates. The harder question is what this same data implies about the students and qualifications we are not reaching – and whether that profile aligns with where South Africa’s economy is actually heading.”
South Africa’s latest skills data, especially regarding the skills needed to compete in an AI-driven global economy, adds another critical dimension to the funding issue. With the country’s youth unemployment rate (the expanded definition) exceeding 60%, our reality is that many of the skills currently available in the market are not needed by the market.
“One of the most striking findings from the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2025 report is that in South Africa, more education does not straightforwardly reduce unemployment risk: it can even increase it,” notes Maponya. “This is linked to subject choice and skills requirements. In a country where STEM-related careers and skills are at a premium, we need to consider which future skills-providers we are automatically excluding because of our current funding systems? And ultimately, at what cost?”
With the constitutional promise of access to further education not self-executing, we need a new national conversation that treats education finance as infrastructure – deserving of the same cross-sector coordination, long-term capitalisation and regulatory seriousness we bring to energy or transport. Private sector players like Fundi cannot and should not be the only answer. But we can be part of the architecture.