NSFAS Requirements Documents For 2025-2026

NSFAS Requirements Documents: You must follow certain requirements during your studies to ensure that you remain eligible for NSFAS funding once you’ve been approved. Keep reading to learn more.

NSFAS funding requires you to do a few things in order to stay funded until you graduate.

NSFAS Requirements Documents For 2025

After you’ve been approved by NSFAS, you will then be expected to:

• Maintain all academic requirements set by institutions
• Participate in lectures, tutorials, and academic support programs as required by your institution
• Ensure that all assignments and/or tasks are completed in accordance with the requirements of the institution
• Tests and examinations (written and oral) are conducted as required by the institution’s performance requirements
• For first-time entry students (FTEN), 50% is the minimum pass rate. 
• For continuing university students, a minimum of 55% must be achieved in their previous academic term.
• For continuing students who qualify as N+2 students under the Higher Education Institutions N+ rule, they must meet the 50% pass criteria.

“Institutions confirm with NSFAS at the beginning of the academic year that students have qualified for progression according to standard institutional policy and approved rules of progression for the specific program they are studying.”

About N+ Rule

The N+ rule determines how many years you can be funded by NSFAS. The N refers to the duration of the course, and the + represents how many additional years NSFAS will fund you if you need to repeat the course.

Before NSFAS became a bursary scheme in 2018, it was a loan scheme that required students to pay back the money they received. The N+2 rule applies to these students. The NSFAS allows you five years to complete a three-year course if you’re doing one funded by it. If you go over the five years, you will need to find another way to pay for your studies.

Due to the fact that it is now a bursary scheme, the N+1 rule applies. In this case, it would mean basically the same thing as above. You have five years to complete your qualification while being funded by NSFAS, and for any additional years, you will need to find your own funding.

It’s important to remember that the N refers to the year you registered for the course. Should you take a gap year, you won’t count that year.

A bursary from NSFAS is provided to students who come from poor and working-class backgrounds and are enrolled or plan to enroll at public universities or TVET colleges.

Visit the Nsfas official website