On the Beat - Junior Edition - April 2018

BURSARIES FOR BEGINNERS
“Money is tight. I feel guilty about every
cent I cost and every cent I spend. How
can I make things easier? I can’t find a job
that works with studying. I want to make
my family’s burden lighter.”
Perhaps this is you, maybe it’s better,
maybe it’s worse: “I am broke. My family is
broke. I don’t know how I will register for
the next year. I don’t know where to start
with applying for funding. I have no way of
getting surety for a bank loan. I can’t see
how I am going to spread the little my
family has between transport, food, tuition,
rent and other living expenses.” Let’s be
honest, there’s never enough money.
Somehow our ambitions and needs
consistently seem to trump our available
funds. Of course, this phenomenon is a
more problematic reality for some than
others. When our studies, our daily lives
and the circumstances of our benefactors
are negatively impacted by our needs to
finance our studies we need to look for
help elsewhere. For many the first thought
would be a loan, and this makes perfect
sense. We are all but guaranteed of a
sturdy income once we finish our studies,
so the problem would only be to manage a
job during the time we are studying… (that
bit where you work but you must pay to
work for someone else). A loan would
allow us to delay the burden of being a
student to a time that we are in fact
capable of affording it.
Unfortunately, this comes with the
responsibility of later having to pay back
the loan, which some people might want to
try and avoid. This leaves us with
bursaries.
What now? Don’t rule them out - consider
applying for a loan, from NFSAS, the Loan
Guarantee Fund, a bank or another
financial service provider. Two useful
places to start would be your bank and/or
Eduloan. Consult www.fundi.co.za to get
an idea of loan quotations. Browse your
UP portal: Student Centre to see if you
can apply for fee adjustment or financial
aid.
Bursaries can be viewed as “guaranteed
employment” once you finish, depending on
the conditions of your particular bursary, and
they can cover more than just tuition.
Textbooks, accommodation and living
expenses are sometimes included as well. A
few good places to start looking for bursary
providers are websites of the provincial
Department of Health and companies
associated with medical professionals, like
PPS.
Pay attention to newspapers, announcement
boards and class related WhatsApp and
Facebook groups. Often news about bursaries
are passed through these channels, like the
South African Medical Association’s bursaries.
There are a couple important things to note
when applying for a bursary: Application
criteria: your latest results, proof of financial
need, area of residence, citizenship etc.
Application documents to accompany your
application: ID, proof of residence, parents’
payslips, photograph, CV, testimony and, but
not limited to, letter of motivation are usually
requested. Check everything: don’t send in
any documents or forms with grammatical
errors or incorrect information. Make sure of
the opening and closing date of the bursary
in question. Don’t apply for one bursary,
apply for as many as you are eligible for to