South African university students have described going full weeks without eating, with one student telling Daily Maverick on 27 August 2026 that they can go seven days without a single meal. The testimony, published in a Daily Maverick report, adds to mounting evidence that student hunger is a persistent and worsening crisis across the country’s higher education institutions.
GroundUp reported on 24 August 2026 that testimony before the South African Human Rights Commission described student hunger as a hidden crisis, with NSFAS food voucher payments often arriving late and falling short of basic needs. Nthuseng Mokoena, a University of Pretoria student and Student Hunger Hearings Task Force volunteer, told the commission that a 2021 University of the Western Cape study found 66% of students were food insecure, while a University of the Free State study reported 65%.
A study published in Frontiers in Education on 11 August 2026, led by Elizabeth Archer and co-authors, surveyed UWC students and found 66% experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, with 49% severely food insecure. The study documented a progression from anxiety about food access to skipped meals, hunger, and going an entire day without eating.
The unnamed student quoted by Daily Maverick captured the extreme end of that spectrum. “[I] can go an entire week and I mean the full seven days without having anything to eat. Not even rice,” the student said.
UWC stated in a February 2026 opinion piece that roughly 10,000 students require food support between the start of the academic year and the first NSFAS allowance payment, which typically arrives in April. That gap leaves thousands dependent on university food aid schemes, NGOs, and peer support for weeks at a time.
Gift of the Givers project director Ali Sablay confirmed the organisation fed 1,000 students in Cape Town for seven days in March 2025 after students arrived at university with no food or accommodation due to NSFAS payment delays. “The organisation fed 1,000 students in Cape Town for seven days as they arrived at university with no food or accommodation due to delays in NSFAS payments,” Sablay said, as first reported by Daily Maverick.
For students from Cape Flats communities where household incomes are already stretched, the funding gap means arriving at campus already undernourished and relying on intermittent support. Researchers have linked food insecurity to poor academic performance, dropout rates, and deteriorating mental health among affected students.
The identity of the student quoted by Daily Maverick has not been independently verified, and the exact number of students who have gone a full week without food remains unconfirmed. Cape Flats will continue monitoring responses from NSFAS, UWC, and the Human Rights Commission as the investigation develops.