**1. Introduction**

South Africa formally implemented the policy of apartheid1 for 46 years, from 1948 when the National Party (NP) became the ruling party until the country's first democratic election in 1994 when the African National Congress (ANC) came into power. During the apartheid years, much more public funds were spent on white learners in the school system and students in the post-secondary school phase than those from other racial groups. One of the results of this unequal spending was that

<sup>1</sup> With the policy of Apartheid, the government stated that different racial groups should be given the opportunity to fully develop in their own regions. The slogan was "separate but equal", but in reality, it developed into "separate but unequal", with whites in South Africa receiving by far the majority of resources spent on social services.

the vast majority of students at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa were white. In 1955, for example, they constituted 89.7% of students, compared to the 5.5% that was black. More than three decades later – in 1990 – black students still represented only 37.7% of all students [1]. This disproportionate relationship between demographic share and representation at higher education institutions of the different racial groups reflects the broader injustice of the previous political dispensation.

In 1990 the ANC was unbanned and in 1994 South Africa held its first democratic election. High expectations emerged around the time of the country's political transition that it would herald in a period of increased access to higher education for those groups that were previously denied access, based on racial criteria. In the period after 1994 tuition fees at HEIs increased substantially, which made it very difficult for students from poor communities to afford it. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was introduced to address this matter of affordability and to change the student profile at South African universities to make it more representative of the demographics of the country.

This chapter briefly looks at the public financing of higher education in South Africa. The emphasis will be on the two and a half decades since the democratic election, although some context will be provided about what happened during the preceding century. The development of NSFAS since its introduction in the mid-1990s will be analysed. The performance of students that received NSFAS awards (loans and bursaries) will receive attention as well as the change in the demographic profile of university students since the NSFAS has been in place.
