The Independent Philanthropy Association of South Africa (Ipasa) launched a suite of bursary toolkits, knowledge briefs, and templates on 20 August 2026 to help higher-education funders navigate a postgraduate funding landscape that has deteriorated sharply since NSFAS stopped funding postgraduate qualifications in 2021.
The resources, funded by the Carl and Emily Fuchs Foundation, the Doris Crossley Foundation, and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, cover programme design, selection criteria, funding agreements, budgeting, and monitoring. They also outline models beyond full-cost bursaries, including top-up funding, co-funding, and institution-level funding, according to Daily Maverick, which first reported the launch on 2 September 2026.
NSFAS confirmed on its website that it no longer funds postgraduate qualifications from the 2021 academic year onward and directs students to the National Research Foundation (NRF). The University of Cape Town’s postgraduate funding guidance confirms that NRF support is awarded as either Full Cost of Study or Partial Cost of Study, with academic and financial-needs criteria applying in some categories.
Professor Lynn Morris, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation at Wits, told the Ipasa webinar that there is a stark difference between government investment in undergraduate versus postgraduate study. According to Daily Maverick, Morris said NSFAS receives over R50-billion annually for undergraduates while the NRF postgraduate budget was only R1-billion in 2024, having roughly halved since 2017. These figures have not been independently verified by Cape Flats News.
Morris also said about 80% of student debt sits in the postgraduate space and that roughly 25% of Wits PhD students never complete their degrees, Daily Maverick reported. These claims remain unverified by a second independent source.
The funding squeeze has direct consequences for Cape Town’s universities. UCT, Stellenbosch University, and the University of the Western Cape all rely on NRF and philanthropic funding to support honours, master’s, and doctoral students, many of whom come from communities across the Cape Flats where household income cannot stretch to postgraduate fees.
Chantelle Oosthuizen, Executive Director of the Cyril Ramaphosa Education Trust, said at the webinar that a bursary cannot simply be about paying fees. Katlego Thindisa, Managing Director of Edukat and lead developer of the resources, said the focus should be on what problem funders are solving and what conditions must be in place for investment to translate into outcomes.
Leandi Sadie, Partnership and Stakeholder Specialist at the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, asked whether the goal is scale or actual outcome. Louise Sturrock, Ipasa programme manager, said many funders are navigating the landscape without a shared body of knowledge.
Cape Flats News has not independently verified the budget figures, completion rates, or debt statistics reported by Daily Maverick. We are checking with NRF and NSFAS for confirmation of the comparative budget numbers and will update this article if responses are received by 5 September 2026.